


It Might Kill Me

by Frick6101719



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: 75th Hunger Games, F/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2019-11-17 15:54:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 41,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18101690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frick6101719/pseuds/Frick6101719
Summary: "As a reminder that Panem is strongest when her people stand united, for the third Quarter Quell Tributes will be given a fellow Tribute as a partner for the arena."~"They're making a very big deal of these Games," my Mentor says, smoothing his thin, dark hair against the wind. "Even more than the other Quells."I suspected as much, but hearing Fra say it makes the danger I'm in feel much more real. "The Capitol must be so happy about the chance for another pair of Victors," I say, raising my eyebrows.He nods. "I'm sure they are.""Maybe, if they're lucky, these Victors will fall in love, too."He grabs my arm, looking at me intently. He nods once. "Maybe... maybe they will."I remember the talk in District Ten after last year's Games were over; whatever their motives, Katniss and Peeta broke the rules, they defied the Capitol... and somehow lived to tell the tale.I think again about Primrose being Reaped for the second year in a row. There's no way that was by accident, and now, after all the fuss with the Star-Crossed Lovers, they're looking for another Victor duo?The Capitol isn't just HOPING for another pair of lovers, I realise. They desperately need one.





	1. Prologue

P.

The idea comes—of all places—from his granddaughter.

"Grandpa," she asks him over breakfast one morning, "will we ever have another pair of star-crossed lovers?"

Her mother, sipping coffee across the table, nearly chokes. "Atia!" She scolds, casting an apologetic glance towards the president. "We've talked about this, sweetie." She gives her daughter a pointed look, clearly intended to prompt an apology.

Snow knows that his only grandchild has been forbidden from asking about his work when he's been especially busy. The last few weeks have been extremely stressful, but it appears this morning Atia can't help herself.

He dismisses his daughter-in-law's concern with a wave of his hand, leaning across the breakfast table towards the nine-year-old. He dabs the blueberry compote smudged on her nose with a napkin. "Why do you ask, my darling? Was one pair not enough?"

"Thank you, Grandpa. No, it's not that. I only think I should like to see more, that's all."

Moira visibly balks at her daughter's statement. Snow steeples his fingers on the table. "Gamemaker Heavensbee and I have been in near-constant discussion concerning these past Games, but I'm intrigued by what you suggest. What have you been thinking?"

Atia shifts in her chair for a moment, thinking, then straightens her posture and lifts her chin. Snow can't help but smile."Well Grandpa, having only one winner means that if you make an alliance you know you'll have to break it, which means less alliances—"

"Fewer alliances," Snow corrects.

"Fewer, right. It means fewer alliances, and not very strong ones. But Katniss and Peeta were in love, so instead of turning on each other they teamed up and beat all the other tributes together. They could beat Dominic, even though he was favoured from the beginning, and all the other strong Tributes." She sits infinitesimally straighter in her chair. "After all, 'united we are strong, chaos descends on a country divided by its own interests.'"

Atia beams, and Snow chuckles, shaking his head. "Quoting my inaugural address at the breakfast table. And your mothers wonder why I spoil you so."

Moira hides her grin behind her mug.

Snow returns his attention to the girl. "So what do you propose, darling?"

The nine-year old is careful to hide her excitement at being called on to give her opinion in such an important matter. "Well, this year is the Quarter Quell, maybe…" She looks around cautiously. She knows, of course, that the ultimate power which decides the theme for the Quell is her grandfather's, but that is a family secret she has only recently been entrusted with. There are only Avoxes around, so she continues, "the special rule could help make more."

He is quiet for a moment, and he can tell Moira is holding her breath to see if Atia will be reprimanded or not. The child is prodigiously intelligent, and she knows it, but on occasion her precocious nature gets her into trouble. Snow remembers, years ago, a tantrum here and there, but his daughter and daughter-in-law have done an excellent job of correcting the girl's manners and temperament.

A fond smile breaks across his face, and Snow laughs. "I will take it under advisement, my dear. But now let us finish our breakfast without any more discussion of the Hunger Games. Tell me about your fencing lesson yesterday; I hear you did very well."

Snow calls Plutarch in for a meeting after lunch, having spent the whole morning mulling Atia's idea over.

"Certainly, it has its merits," the Gamemaker conjectures, sitting in a plush chair in Snow's office. "Your granddaughter came up with it? Cited your famous speech?" He exhales loudly, shaking his head. "She's already a force to be reckoned with."

"Indeed." Snow adjusts the rose at his lapel, unsmiling despite the pride he feels at the praise of his granddaughter. "I imagine there will be issues to sort through on both our ends, but this provides an intriguing, alternate solution to our… star-crossed-lovers problem."

Plutarch nods. "This reminds me of the conversation we had after you elected me Head Gamemaker. There is a spark lighting, we both know this, but the wrong wind can blow that spark into a fire rather than extinguish it. This would certainly be an act of great benevolence toward the Districts." He hesitates for the barest fraction of a second before continuing. "I propose we be the young sapling from the parable, not the old tree. It is better to bend in the storm than to be broken beyond repair." He leans forward. "Panem is young, and she has endured seventy-four years of unrelenting authority. Show the people that we hear them, that we can be benevolent and loving, so long as they obey. We must not let them forget that we—that you—are in complete control."

Snow smiles at the younger man. "How do you propose we find this balance? I'm sure, of course, that you're not suggesting we do nothing about the Everdeen girl and her act of rebellion."

Plutarch shifts in his chair, rubbing his chin. "I suggest we do with the sister as Gamemaker Iberilia suggested-put her in the Games. The Trinket woman won't accept any bribes, I'm sure, and is too simple to be trusted to keep quiet. Her attachment to the pair would further complicate things, but we can easily find a way to pull those string without her cooperation. And of course, with her sister in danger, Katniss will be completely compliant."

"Excellent. Gamemaker Iberilia can see that through, but what more do you propose for the Games themselves?"

"I think… I think we need to make something of these Games that has never been seen before. Make this year unforgettable; we'll drag them out, make it an elaborate ordeal that will make everyone forget about last year. And of course, we can create a new pair of Victors and eventual lovers, as your granddaughter suggested. In their company, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark will not shine as brightly as they do now."

"Good. Anything else? The other Victors?"

Plutarch knows he walks on thin ice. Snow interacts with the people around him like a man making a purchase, testing and prodding for weak spots, inspecting them for their value, and completely willing to discard them and move along if his examination is less than satisfactory. Plutarch knows that as much as it seems the president is inquiring of him, he's also making sure his new Head Gamemaker won't make the same sort of mistake that killed Seneca Crane. "Having all the Victors entered in the Reaping, as we were planning to, would certainly crush the rebellion building amongst them. They are the strongest; they represent the success of the people. But they are also the favourites of the entire country, Capitol included. We ought not to seem overly cruel, or we risk making things worse."

"A diplomatic response, Plutarch." Snow nods once, and the other man visibly relaxes. "I thought about this issue much this morning. Perhaps we might ease up slightly on the Victors. Increasing their privileges will have a two-fold effect: it will improve our relationship with them—which will be helpful in presenting a united front—and it will increase the envy of the masses. As you know, in recent years, District Four has seen a drastic decrease in volunteers, but with increased Victor privileges, it will refresh the interest in glory and prosperity."

"Excellent idea, sir. And as for the arena? You recall, of course, the complications with the island. We are in a pickle as things stand..."

At this, Snow's smile is genuine, if predatory. Plutarch feels a chill course through his body. "Yes, I have just the idea that will tie everything together quite nicely."


	2. One in Seven Hundred

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone. This is a re-posting of a fic I've had on FF.net since July 2018, so if it looks familiar and you use that site, that might be why!  
> I hope you enjoy it; it's been in the works for me since 2013, at the height of my HG obsession, and by this point I basically have a trilogy of my own inside my head. If you do enjoy it, please leave a comment! I would love to hear from you.

_If the sun don't shine on me today_

_And if the subways flood and bridges break_

_Will you lay yourself down and dig your grave_

_Or will you rail against your dying day?_

* * *

I can't speak for anyone else in District Ten, but our cattle have never observed even one national holiday.

Reaping Day, as a result, dawns much the same as any other of the three-hundred-sixty-five-point-two-four days of the year, and I should know; I'm always up before the sun is.

My family—stolid ranchers that we are—are also resolute about carrying on the day as if it's perfectly normal. We eat breakfast at quarter-to-six, dressed for the morning's work, passing oatmeal and hard-boiled eggs around the table while Dad gives us the rundown of the morning's work. We have a weak spot of fence to check (like we always seem to), some calves to brand, and a few other assorted jobs before the Reaping at three sharp. Nothing big for us to do today, since we won't have time, but plenty enough to keep our minds off what's coming.

As careful as we are to adhere to the appearance of normalcy, my little sister Bryn laughs a little too loudly at our older brother Nye's story from yesterday, while my little brother Griffin—whose first ever Reaping is today—can't manage more than a wan smile while he pokes at his oatmeal. We aren't a poor family, by Ten's standards, but food  _never_  goes to waste. Griff seems to be force-feeding himself as a reminder that he usually (always) leaves the table wanting more, even though today his appetite is non-existent.

My parents' deviations from our normal routine are harder to spot. They've had a lot more Reapings to worry about than any of us, between their own and now those of their six children, and that practice pays off. But while Dad's perfect efficiency is unwavering as he gives us all our jobs for the day, his voice is a touch less "aye aye, Captain" and a bit more… well, father-like. Mum drinks her hot water with all her characteristic, cool poise, but the kisses she firmly plants on all our cheeks are maybe a little longer than usual this morning.

Dad takes his two youngest children to go brand the calves, and the oldest two—Lowri and Brody—will be helping them if necessary but mostly they'll keep the herd in line. This leaves me with Nye, as usual, and Nye's favourite job.

"Fence duty? Again? Why must I be punished when I am the most delightful of your children?" He must be asking either the crows or God, since we're in the barn and neither of our parents are within earshot.

I laugh, putting together the pack of tools and wire. "Beats me. You'd think if they wanted the fences really fixed they would send someone who's actually  _good_  at it."

Nye grabs the fence posts we keep in the barn, rolling his eyes. "And yet,  _you're_  here, so they clearly  _don't_  care about it being done well at all!"

"Well, someone needs to make sure you're not just sitting in the dirt talking to the birds," I say, climbing onto my horse to look down at him, "Hurry up—this needs done before next year."

"Funny," he says, hopping up on his own horse. "Remind me: of the two of us, who is it that actually  _has_  been caught talking to the birds?"

The section of fence is pretty far from the ranch buildings, at the far corner of the field we'll be moving the cattle to at the end of this week. Brody spotted it yesterday before having to race off with Nye to help our neighbours with a bull that was causing problems. The fence in pretty rough shape, but Nye and I are old pros, and work quickly.

Usually we work in what Nye calls "silence." He claims he prefers to work without noise, but what he means is he prefers to work while quietly singing to himself and vehemently denying that he's making any sound at all.

This "silence" half drives me nuts; the time passes so much more slowly with only the wind and his off-key, half-remembered tunes to listen to.

Thankfully, it's Reaping Day, and that means we make exceptions. "So, what's your plan for this year?" He asks me, after about half an hour of working to the chorus of the same song six times over.

I look up from digging to see him leaning on his shovel, taking a long drink from his water bottle. I adopt his stance, blinking away sweat. "My strategy would depend a lot on my partner, and how strong they were. I mean, if I'm trying to play tough that's going to be pretty hard if my partner is a kid who keeps crying on-camera."

"True, true." He thinks for a moment. "Well, say you get a typical nobody from an outlying district. They score about a six, maybe a seven."

This is a what-if game Nye and I play every year. Today I face my penultimate Reaping, but lucky Nye is staring down his last. Talking through a strategy, usually with lots of joking and an unspoken rule that no one gets emotional, helps both of us cope with the stress. I think of it as daring to imagine the unimaginable, acknowledging the very small possibility that either of us will be Reaped, but refusing to get upset or scared at the prospect.

We tried to do it with Bryn when she was facing her first Reaping, but all we got was a real dressing-down from our parents for scaring our little sister silly. We didn't even bother trying with Griff.

"Well obviously no crying on the television, but no playing tough then either," I reply. "I don't want to be pegged as an easy hunt for the Careers, but I also don't want to be seen as serious competition."

"Blend into the mid-pack." He nods. "And then at training, just try to soak up as much information as possible. Everything about survival, pick up any new, non-weapon skills."

"Exactly. And then crush it in the interview." I pick my shovel back up, swinging it in a slow, dramatic arc at his head. "Worst-case scenario: you can kill somebody with just about anything. I'll never beat a Career with a spear or a sword, but if I can smash their head with a rock or something when they're not expecting it, well, they're just as dead."

Nye swings his shovel to meet mine, as if we're in a mock duel. "What if you get paired with one of those Careers? Personally, I'd love to be paired with another Topazz Taylor—you remember the girl from One three years ago?"

"How could I forget?" I wiggle my eyebrows, and Nye sighs dreamily. "Wasn't she killed by Loren from Two?" She was. And brutally.

"Don't remind me," Nye laments, stabbing his shovel into the ground. "Together we would have been unstoppable."

"You'd have been  _something_ , alright," I tease. "I wouldn't mind a Finnick O'Dair, myself. Topazz was hot, but Finnick is hot  _and_  charming."

Nye whistles, but it's broken by his grunt, lifting a hunk of dirt from a growing hole. "Oh who  _would_ mind that hunk? Even if he  _wasn't_  a hunk, he'd still be one of the best Victors of all time." He pauses shovelling, taking a swig from his water bottle. "But if I  _did_  get paired with a Career this year—Finnick O'Dair or otherwise—I'd want to somehow separate them from the pack of the six of them," he says.

"Why's that?"

"Because I don't think the Careers will be too attached to their partners if they've also got the protection of the others, who would be much better trained than me."

"And if they deemed you to be too threatening a pair, they'd be better off killing you both in your sleep or something." I nod, seeing his point. "You're safer alone."

"Exactly. Especially me."

I think about this for a minute more, as I continue to dig. "I guess I would do that too, but only if I couldn't convince the Careers of my value otherwise. Say I could make them need me for another reason, whether it be knowledge of medicine, familiarity with the landscape of the arena—

"Some hidden talent with a bow and arrows, say, that you currently know nothing about?"

I smirk. "I was thinking more of a knack for explosives."

Nye sighs, then grunts again. "Well, too bad you don't have any skills, secret or otherwise," he says cheekily. "I think this hole is finished. Pass me a post, will you?"

I finish my own hole a second later, ignoring his jab. "I'm curious to see how they'll decide who gets paired with whom."

"Beats me. If it's random, the odds of you being matched with a Career are six in twenty-three. Not bad. Over a quarter, isn't it?"

"Yeah, assuming both Tributes from One, Two, and Four are all volunteers," I say. "But those odds are practically irrelevant; my odds of getting Reaped, I figure, are only one in seven hundred." If the census data available in the Library can be trusted, at least.

Nye hums thoughtfully. "I'm sorry, I'm going to need that in a percentage. Fractions mean nothing to me."

As older brothers do, he only says this to bug me. It was a mistake ever trying to make him understand why fractions are superior to percentages and decimals; as he was quick to point out,  _no one cares_. I stick my tongue out at him. "See you think that will be hard but this is an easy one, and I actually know it to  _infinite_  decimal places—

"Four will suffice," he says, already losing interest.

"0.001429 percent, rounded to the nearest millionth," I reply tartly. "No extra cost for the extra accuracy."

"What are  _my_ odds?"

"I don't know, I didn't look up the population statistics for your demographic."

I hear his shovel stop, and I look up and see the ground filled in and the post firmly in place, even with Nye leaning on it. "You didn't?"

I raise an eyebrow. "Of course I did. Around one in seven-eighty, I figure. Roughly 0.00128 percent."

"Hmm… yep, you're right; by my calculations I'm getting the same thing."

"Oh" I frown, "if you're getting the same thing then I must have made a mistake…"

We finish the fence and are back at the house at twelve, taking the opportunity as the first ones home to get cleaned up for the Reaping before eating any lunch. The bathtub is old, and takes a while to fill, and no one has actual baths anyway so both of us are finished with our turn when the others arrive.

It's harder now for everyone to maintain the lie of everything being normal with Nye and me already dressed in our Sunday best, and lunch is an unusually quiet affair, silence broken only by the quiet sound of cutlery on plates and chairs scraping on floors as someone else leaves to take their turn washing up.

Soon it's one-thirty, and everyone is ready and fed as well as we can be when no one has an appetite. Mum dresses the best roast we can afford to keep for ourselves before we leave; when we all return home tonight, relieved and famished, it will taste out-of-this-world delicious.

As cattle ranchers, we're pretty close to the edge of the populated District; most of the land between us and the border is made up of fields where the animals graze during the warm months. It takes us over an hour to walk to the square for the Reaping.

No one else really arrives early, but it's nice to not have to wait in a long line to get checked in. Once Nye, Bryn, Griff, and I are all registered, we meet outside our age sections until three o'clock strikes. We don't talk really, we're just together, which is nice.

Griff's shirt is soaked with sweat long before three o'clock arrives. My stomach, as usual, is in knots, but I force myself to stay calm outwardly. Nye says something about Griff not needing to take a bath if he's going to go for a swim in his own sweat, and Griff smiles. His face still looks green, his hands awkwardly bunched in his pockets, but we all do better when we're laughing. Bryn cackles, too loudly, again.

"Bryn, you sound like a horse," Nye mocks her laugh with one that really does sound like a horse, and this time Griff even laughs.

I look over just in time to see District Ten's Escort arrive, giving Nye a look of pure revulsion. "Rhodendra Lelless is giving you the hairy eyeball." I poke my older brother, laughing and pointing at the stage. "Your behaviour is reflecting  _very_  poorly on our District. You ought to be ashamed."

"Ah! The Maroon Monstrosity has arrived!" He says, delighted. Rhodendra has lost a lot of weight in recent years, but sadly she has  _not_  lost the nickname Nye gave her when he was barely eight years old, before Lowri's first reaping. He looks around the square as more people are arriving. "How drunk do you think Bran will be this morning?"

"After last year, he'll only be drunk if he has a death wish. Fra has taken Haymitch Abernathy as a cautionary tale, to say the least, and Bran told me he's been threatened within an inch of his life to behave." Both Fra and Bran are District Ten Victors, and personal friends of our family. Fra was Ten's third ever, and while it's hard to imagine the mild-mannered librarian as a teenage killer, it's a lot easier when his booze-soaked protegé is misbehaving.

Which is often.

"Bran could take him," Nye insists.

"Not if he's drunk."

His eyes light up. "Wanna bet?"

I scoff. "You've seen Bran drunk; he just gets really chatty and then he gets all depressed."

Bryn, despite having lived with us her whole life, never ceases to be appalled at our dark humour. "He was in the Hunger Games!" She exclaims, horrified.

I give her a scandalized look. "He  _what?_  No one told  _me!"_

Bryn shakes her head, and Griff laughs at her again.

"It's Clyse I'd be worried about," Griff says.

He's absolutely right. Bran has his demons, but despite their sometimes-tense relationship, Fra has helped him through the years of post-Games depression with remarkable success. They're both well-adjusted, all things considered.

Clyse, the third and youngest Victor, is another matter entirely. Alcohol is his vice of choice, like Bran, but unlike Bran, he turns into a bitter and violent drunk. He won the Games nine years ago, and in that time Fra has tried to help him find healthier ways of coping than trying to pickle his own liver, but to no avail. Clyse will almost certainly be completely plastered this morning.

No one has any sort of witty quip for Griff's statement. Nye just looks off at the stage, where the Victors will sit, and says "Wow Griff, way to be a downer."

In a few minutes we go our separate ways, shepherded into the appropriate sectors by some Peacekeepers. This is the worst part; waiting, having to listen to the whole Hunger-Games bullshit spiel, trying not to faint or vomit while waiting for the names to be read. With my siblings I can joke and play it off, but at this point it's just waiting.

Watching the Tributes walk up to the stage is my second least favourite part, but there are so many mixed emotions in that moment that it's hard to focus on just how sad it is. A boy I was kind of friends with was Reaped when we were thirteen, and that was terrible, but it's not the same as the fear and anticipation of listening for your own name, or your siblings' names, dreading hearing them.

I feel a hand slip into my own and squeeze, and I turn to see the freckled face of one of my closest friends, Nal. "Hey," I say, smiling. "How are you holding up?" Judging by her slightly red and puffy eyes, the same as every year.

She gives her best smile; wobbly as it is, it's encouraging to see. "How do you think? I've been crying since last night and I'm sure I'll be crying until tomorrow morning."

"At least it's our second last year. Soon this will all be behind us." Nallia has no younger siblings, so it's truly over for her after next year.

She nods. "Can't come soon enough."

"If you're that eager for it to be over, you can always volunteer," I offer, laughing when she swats my arm. "Either way, then you wouldn't have to worry about next year's Reaping!"

We're joined then by the third member of our little crew, another girl our age named Laney.

Laney gives Nal and then me each a tight hug. She's not normally affectionate like this; usually if you try to hug her she goes stiff as a board, just waiting for it to be over, dreading every second.

But on Reaping Day, everyone's a little off.

"Don't hug me like we're dying!" Nal shrieks, wiping her eyes. "You're the worst, Laney, look at me! I had it all together!"

"She was composed for five whole seconds Laney. I hope you're pleased with yourself," I scold.

Nal gives me a withering look.

"If you can manage to make it through this whole thing with less than three cynical remarks, I'll win a bet with Dack," Laney says to me, her normal, cool composure returned. "He was sure you couldn't do it."

"So I'm capped at three? And you're betting on it?" I'm not surprised, not truly.

"You're capped at two, and no more or I have to work in the chicken barn at the Gowens' with him after school tomorrow."

"And if you win?" Nal asks.

"He has to do my history assignment."

I nod. "Not bad! I'll try my hardest."

She holds up two fingers. "You can do it. Nal is supposed to verify, because she's a terrible liar."

Nal gasps, but before she can form a reply, the annual Hooray-for-the-Hunger-Games video (as Nye calls it) starts to play.

_One in seven hundred,_  I think to myself, not bothering to listen to the words I've heard a dozen times.  _Those are good odds._

The way probability works, Rhodendra Lelless should only draw my name once if she dipped those long, purple fingernails into the ball seven hundred times. The way  _reality_ works, she could draw my name seven hundred times out of seven hundred draws.

Life doesn't adhere to the predictability of the theories we come up with to make sense of it, which explains why, a few minutes later, those long purple fingernails pluck out one slip of paper. Only one, not seven hundred, yet Rhodendra calls out my name.

"Caerwyn Dahl!"

At first I feel only skeptical, the same as I would feel if Laney were explaining to me how she got to her solution in a maths question, when her calculations were dubious at best.  _That can't be right_ , my instincts want to tell me.

I know how probability works. But I also know how life works, and I know when I see Laney reach to catch Nal, who has fainted, and I see her turn to look at me with white showing all around her eyes, that this  _is_   _really happening_.

I look over to the boys' section, and I find Nye's tall head quickly. He looks like he's been punched in the stomach, but he closes his mouth and gives his head the tiniest shake.

_No crying._

I don't cry, I feel like I'm in a daze. I count my steps to the front of the square, ordering myself not to look for Bryn, or Griff, and especially not my Mom and Dad off to the side somewhere. I look at Rhodendra, her plastic smile, and I smile back. I see Bran and Fra on stage out of the corner of my eye, and I immediately look away from their shocked and horrified faces. Fra grew up working on my grandpa's ranch with my Dad and his siblings—I'm practically a niece to him.

I stand on the stage, my right leg starting to shake. I shift my weight so it won't, looking out at the crowd of people and finding Nye's face. He still looks a little green, but his expression is firm. I keep looking at him, like we're still little kids trying not to be the first one to blink.

I don't pay attention to the boy Tribute being called—I don't catch his name, he barely looks familiar, and all I can think when we shake hands is that I hope I don't look as terrified as he does.

* * *

I  _do_ cry when my family comes to say goodbye.

We spend all of our allotted time basically in a group hug, everybody crying, until my Mom pushes us apart and grabs my face in her hands.

She was raised a butcher's daughter, and when she married Dad they worked at the butcher's shop until my grandpa died and my dad inherited the ranch. Since then, this woman has raised six kids while splitting time between the ranch and the shop. She is not to be messed with—her hands are callused and as tough as she is, squeezing my cheeks.

"You do whatever it takes, you understand?" She kisses me on each cheek, like she does every morning, and this time I can  _definitely_  tell she's lingering. A tear leaks out of her eye as she pulls away, and she brushes it away and gives me a watery smile. "We'll be praying for you. You're such a strong girl, and so smart. If anyone can do this, you can."

Well that certainly isn't going to help me stop crying. I practically fall into her arms, pressing my cheek to her shoulder while I can feel Dad's hand on the back of my head. "I'll do it," I whisper. "I'll do anything."

Dad whispers a prayer over our heads as we all come together once more, the Peacekeeper at the door shouting that we only have another minute.

"Protect her," he says, his voice surprisingly strong. I feel someone put their hand on my shoulder and squeeze. I look up and see Nye. He nods once at me, his eyes red.

I nod once back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song lyrics from the beginning are from The Lumineers's "Sleep on the Floor"


	3. The First Step to Recovery is Admitting You Have a Problem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caer finishes her goodbyes, and gets some important new information while on the train to the Capitol.

_What? What might you do?_

_Your secret's safe behind a pretty smile,_

_But it's mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine_

* * *

Nal and Laney come in barely a second after my family leaves the waiting room. There's no pretending I haven't been crying, and Nal breaks down the second she sees me, sobbing and grabbing me in a fierce hug.

"Hey, hey, it'll be okay," I say, my voice scratchy. "I'm going to come home, obviously."

Neither of them have anything to say to that. None of our classmates have ever come back, after all.

"I will," I insist, not sure who I'm trying to convince. "You guys know how stubborn I can be."

Laney sniffs, the best she can do under the circumstances.

There's a commotion outside the door, someone shouting, someone else shouting louder, and then without any real warning the door flies open and two boys are shoved inside.

The door slams behind them. "They're such _dicks_ ," Dack curses, straightening his shirt. His face softens when he turns to face us. "Shit, Caerwyn, sorry we weren't here sooner, those assholes wouldn't let us through." He pulls me in for a hug, tucking my head under his chin. Dack is Nal’s older brother, and is tall and lanky like she is. "I'm so sorry." He sounds angry.

He lets me go just long enough for Tristan, the fifth member of our little group, to open his arms for me to throw myself in. Tristan is much shorter and stockier than Dack, his strong arms making him a truly exceptional hugger. But even he can't make me feel much better today, though.

"Listen," he says, his words choked. "You can do this."

I nod against his shoulder, and he lets me go. "I'm going to give it my best shot. Whatever it takes, you know?"

Laney reaches for my hand and squeezes as I lean against her side.

"You  _can_  do it, you know," Dack says quietly, eyebrows drawn together. "You know it's in you. If you play it right, you can win."

"Thanks Dack." My eyes start stinging again, but I'm determined not to let more tears fall. "Someone say something funny; I have to stop crying so I'm not all puffy-eyed on the way to the train."

Nal all but starts wailing at the mention of the train. Tristan puts his arm around her shoulders, and she sobs into his shirt.

Dack, like Nye, just has a look of hard determination on his face, as if he can make me win by sheer force of will. "People will like you. You'll get sponsors. And ditch your partner if he's a dumbass deadbeat; don’t let him slow you down,” he says.

"He's right, Caer," Laney says. I can tell she's giving Dack a nod over my head. "You can do this, and on your own if you have to. You have to look out for yourself first."

Nal looks about to protest, but thinks better of it. "I don't care what you have to do, you just have to come home,” she says. She gives me another hug, holding on for so long I think I'm going to start crying again.

"I'm already planning," I tell them, trying to sound confident. "Fra will help me, I'm sure. I'm in good hands, and if I get a good partner then that's even better. But I'm coming home, with or without help."

The Peacekeepers don't give us a warning this time, still upset with Dack for yelling and swearing at them, and undoubtedly for making several rude gestures that would get him into real trouble any other day of the year.

I get one more hug from each of them before they're pulled away, and about three dozen "I love you's" as they're forced out the door.

I sit down on the floor, not expecting any more visitors, and not getting any. Panic starts to rise in my chest that this might be the last time I see my family and friends, but I fight to keep my composure. No more crying; it's time to move on. Every moment counts, from here on out.

In a few minutes they will come for me, but that's enough time for me to calm my breathing and think about a few things.

Nye and I were only six and seven for Lowri's first Hunger Games. I don't remember much about it, only how scared she and my parents were. But two years later, when it was Brody staying up all night worrying about the Reaping, Nye and I were also awake, talking about what we would do if it was  _us._

He shared a room with our two brothers, but as one was crying in our parents' room and the other only four years old and fast asleep, I was able to sneak across the hall so we could scare ourselves silly with worst-case scenarios involving the arena until it was time to get up and do chores.

We didn't end up doing any chores that day; when Dad came to wake us up and found us fake sleeping only as well as eight and nine-year-olds can, we got a sound thrashing but were allowed to get a little sleep in before the Reaping. Mom, Dad, and Lowri did as much of the work as they could, but even Reaping leniency only goes so far, and next year, we were promised, we would be doing our chores no matter how tired we were.

But a tradition was begun, and even though Nye and I would either wait until the morning to discuss our strategy or find time the day before, every year since then we've made a point to just talk about it. At first it was fairly superficial—how would you go to the washroom in the arena? What kind of a weapon would you use?

Brody, of course, wasn't Reaped then or ever. The male Tribute from Ten that first year was an eighteen-year-old boy named Clyse Eolson. And after Clyse came home it seemed easier to believe that _we_ could do it too, if we had to. Our discussions turned into: how would you stay warm, like Clyse had to, when lighting a fire would mean your certain discovery? How would you kill someone if you didn't have a weapon, just your bare hands? Could you even do it? When you really got there, in the moment where it's you and them and you  _might_  kill them, could you?

We both decided yes. But it's different sitting here on the plush carpet in this room in a building I've never been in, knowing that it's no longer a question of  _if_  but of  _when_.

My answer is still yes. When the time comes, and it will, I believe my answer will continue to be yes. It will be hard to do and hard to live with, but the cold hard truth of the matter is that it's them or me, and it just can't be me.

The Peacekeepers take me from the Justice Building, and I make sure to look up at the camera and keep my chin—not high exactly—but level. I've been crying, but not excessively, and the important thing is that I've kept my composure while on camera.

I'm the first one to the car, and I've only just sat down when I see my District partner coming to join me. He's an average-looking Tribute, as most of us are. Not especially tall or short, not especially beautiful or ugly, not remarkable in any way really.

The Peacekeepers have to push him along, and he drops something when they give him an extra urgent shove. He stops to pick it up, shoving it into his pocket, and I realise it's his token at the exact moment I realise I don't have one myself.

For some reason, this almost starts an onslaught of tears, but there's nothing I can do about it now, and I try my best not to be upset about it. Still, as the boy gets into the car and we start for the train station, I can't help the feeling that my heart is breaking leaving the only home I've ever known without anything to remember it by.

I know it's foolish, in light of everything else today has brought, and ultimately tokens are a triviality that don't help twenty-three of twenty-four Tributes, but I wish I had  _something_.

There are cameras at the train station, but I pretend not to notice them as Rhodendra comes up to escort us onto the train.

I'm glad there aren't cameras inside the train, because I'm embarrassed of the way my jaw just hits the floor when I see the lavish interior of the car.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Rhodendra chirps as she moves past us. I look over and see the boy… I search for his name, remembering after a moment that it's Jace, and feel better that he looks just as awe-struck as I feel.

"It's exquisite," I breathe, drinking it all in—the thick crimson carpet, the silver-edged cherry wood furniture, the crystal chandelier… there is more wealth displayed in this room than I've seen in my entire life up until this moment, and I can imagine it's only the shadow of what's to come when we arrive in the Capitol. "How long are we on the train for, Rhodendra?"

"We are on the train until ten-twenty-one tomorrow morning. Then, as usual, Tributes are off to the Remake Centre, which is always such an exciting time!"

It's amazing how so many years on the job have not been enough to dull her enthusiasm, or to make her realise how out of place it is.

She gestures towards the back of the train as we start to move. "You will find your sleeping cars that way—" Jace immediately stalks in that direction, and Rhodendra pauses for only a moment to scowl at his rude exit—"And you'll find the dining and bar cars in the other direction." She frowns as the door closes behind Jace. "I suppose  _he_  isn't interested in a tour."

I give my best apologetic smile. "I guess not. Are our Mentors on the train already? I'd like to see them, if that's alright."

"Of course dear! Yes yes, Francis and Clyse are somewhere around here… they're supposed to be in the dining car, but… well, their manners aren't always without fault, you know." She sniffs.

"I understand. I imagine Clyse prefers the bar car, though it's actually Fra—er, Francis, that I'm looking for."

Rhodendra's violet eyebrows shoot up. "Do you already know the District Ten Victors?"

I nod. "Fra was a close friend of my uncles'. And I know Bran well, too, but I only really know  _of_  Clyse." I hesitate. "I'm surprised he's here, actually."

I'm only trying to make conversation, knowing it's better to be on Rhodendra's good side. Especially if Jace is determined to get off on the wrong foot.

She looks around, as if checking for eavesdroppers. "Brandon was a much better Mentor, if you ask me." He's also much more handsome and charming, which I'm sure has  _nothing_  to do with her preference. "But Clyse insisted, I gather, and Brandon wasn't going to fight him about it. He'll still be in the Capitol, of course. He's not one to miss a party, especially not if there's an open bar."

I laugh. "So you know them pretty well."

Rhodendra beams. "I dare say I do."

She takes me through the dining car to one set up with couches and a sleek television that occupies much of one wall. She claps twice, and the windows dim to black. "Are you interested in watching the recap, Caerwyn?"

I fold my hands together to resist the temptation to clap myself and see what happens. "That would be great, thanks. Do you know if our Mentors will be around soon?"

She straightens. "They are around here  _somewhere_ ,” she repeats. She checks her wristwatch. "Caesar's official recap of the Reapings should start any minute, as District Eleven should be nearly finished. You get settled, and I'll find them and send them to you. This train is your home until we arrive in the Capitol, so please feel free to help yourself to food and drink, although dinner will be served at six PM promptly, and you'll want to have something of an appetite."

"Thanks Rhodendra."

She smiles. "I'm here to help, dear. Don't hesitate to ask about anything."

As soon as she's out of the car, I collapse gracelessly onto the couch opposite the tv. I clap twice, and the windows clear, letting the sunshine back in. Two more claps and they return to darkness.

"Amazing," I say, to no one in particular.

The television here, obviously, is much more high-tech than the dusty old box we have in our house, but after some fiddling I figure out how to get it to work. It's already tuned to Caesar's station, which makes my life considerably easier.

This year his hair is a pale lilac, with eyebrows to match, but I only get a brief glimpse of him before we're already onto footage of District One. There are the classic hovercraft shots of the District, a reminder of their industry, and then the Reaping begins.

Both Tributes from One, as usual, are volunteers. The first is a tall, lithe, handsome boy with a dazzling smile and bright green eyes, jogging up to the stage after being selected over the other two volunteers. His name is Glint, and he smiles and waves at the crowd like he's already a Victor while the female Tribute is Reaped.

No one pays much attention to her, but the girl who steps forward to volunteer immediately draws all eyes, and the crowd roars encouragement as she strides towards the stage, uncontested. District One is notorious for outrageous, audacious names, but when they announce her as Majestie, I can't help but think that it would be wrong to call her anything else.

I'm sure at home Nye's heart is skipping a beat or two.

She's easily as tall as her partner, built sleek and muscular, with a deep, flawless complexion and long, dark brown hair. Smiling somehow only with her eyes, she looks predatory, and in the moment she looks up at the camera like she's sharing a joke with the rest of us I mark her down as far more serious a threat than her partner. This girl has both the looks and I'm sure the skills to win these Games, and she knows it.

They shake hands, and I can see that even Glint's confidence seems to falter a little as Majestie gives him the tiniest hint of a grin.

Both of them are dangerous, I'm sure, and I try to remember not to underestimate him. District One Careers tend to be the slipperiest, and I can't afford to make any faulty assumptions. But it's Majetie who stands out the most in my mind, as Caesar comments on what a pretty pair they make.

District Two presents two more volunteers to send into the Games. Typically the Tributes from Two are straightforward, not bothering to be charming or sexy or smart or interesting. I think back to Dominic and Clove from last year, remembering them as a couple of unhinged psychopaths and bona-fide killers. I expect to see more of the same from the District with more Victors than any other.

I'm not disappointed. A girl named Farley volunteers confidently, and as usual in Two, it seems their volunteers are decided ahead of time, because there is only a hush after she steps forward. She is of medium height and strongly built, with chin-brushing brown hair and a determined look on her unsmiling face. A smattering of freckles across her nose might seem cute on someone less intense, but intensity is practically its own industry in District Two.

The male Tribute I immediately put in the same category as Majestie. He's like the upgraded version of last year's boy from Two; he's even taller and broader, and his face is a mask of inscrutability as he walks up to the stage like this is just another, regular day for him. Someone wolf whistles from the audience, and for a split second he looks annoyed before his face slips back into an indifferent scowl.

His name is Cato, and despite his cool nonchalance, there's something about the rigid set of his massive shoulders that says he's never truly off his guard. I'm sure he can kill with his bare hands without so much as batting an eye.

I chew on my lip as Caesar mentions he's also the son of District Two's Victor from the forty-ninth Hunger Games. Victors sit on the stage for the Reaping, and the camera pans to a tall man in his early forties who still looks fit enough to take on most men half his age. The resemblance between the two is startling, except the father is smirking.

Being a Legacy Tribute, as Caesar calls him, bodes poorly for the rest of us. Still, Tributes with parents who are Victors often have the most to prove, and that can be a weakness.

I mean, he's from District Two, and they're not known for producing brainiac Tributes. After last year, I've seen how being overly sure of your self can go horribly, disgustingly wrong, even for the best-trained Career.

Next is District Three, and it's… District Three. It's much harder watching Tributes get Reaped than volunteer, and the girl from this District, a gangly fourteen-year-old named Elinnor, even passes out while standing on stage. The boy, sixteen-year-old Lane, is terribly skinny and looks ready to vomit the entire time he's on camera. I don't let myself feel sorry for them, though. I can't afford that.

I remind myself not to underestimate anyone, even as I watch the Peacekeepers lift Elinnor and carry her away to the Justice Building. But these two just don't seem threatening at all. Last year's boy was brilliant enough to get in with the Careers, however, so I make a note to figure out what their jobs were in Three, to see if they could possibly be more than they appear.

District Four, for the first time in years, has two more volunteers themselves. When they call for the boy Tribute, there are actually two who rush forward, and the boy who ends up getting in is a short but stocky boy with long black hair named Logan. He doesn't smile either, but waves politely when the camera zooms in on him. Sorrell, the girl who volunteers, is only sixteen—young for a volunteer—but is clearly brimming with confidence as she flips her strawberry-blonde hair over one shoulder and sashays towards the stage. She says something to Logan that makes him crack a smile as they shake hands, and she grins and even winks at the camera when it focuses on her, something Caesar seems to love.

I'm not sure what to make of either of them. District Four has been inconsistent with volunteering for the last six or seven years, and I know at least in all of my years of being Reaping age they've never had  _both_  Tributes be volunteers. It could be the fact that this is a Quell that has renewed their interest, but I suspect it's more the fact that they're promised a partner to fight with.

That doesn't mean either of them are less deadly, though; Clearly Sorrell's been itching to volunteer and isn't willing to wait another year or two. I can't imagine the decision to volunteer is an easy one, so she must know what she's doing.

On my mental list, I put a question mark beside both of them.

The rest of the Reapings, as there are no more Career Districts, are much less interesting. I keep track of all of their names, ages, and make notes on ones who stand out for one reason or another, but there isn't a lot of that. Most of the Tributes are undernourished, as usual, and cry or vomit or do something else that marks them as easy prey while on camera. A muscular boy with short red hair from Seven actually volunteers, which is very surprising, but besides that, nothing happens of interest.

Until I get to District Twelve.

I'm still congratulating myself on how composed I looked during my own Reaping when a familiar name is called in the final District:

Primrose Everdeen.

I sit bolt upright on the couch as I see the most famous twelve—rather, thirteen-year-old—in Panem walk towards the stage, her mouth slightly ajar. I can practically hear the whole country gasp and go still as she takes her place beside her Escort.

In seventy-five years, no one has ever been Reaped twice, until today.

Caesar Flickerman even seems stunned into silence and says nothing until the camera zooms in on Katniss Everdeen, who turns her face away and buries it into Peeta Mellark's shoulder. Peeta holds her, stroking her hair, his own eyes wide. He looks over at Haymitch Abernathy, sitting beside him on the stage. The older man looks angry—and uncharacteristically sober—and gives Peeta a barely perceptible shake of his head.

 _Not now,_  he seems to say.

I'm still sitting slack-jawed as they Reap the male Tribute. Even the District Twelve Escort is barely keeping it together as she hastily calls for a boy named Kyde Nalthion, another thirteen-year-old who is completely ignored in favour of the country's darling girl, admirably stoic on-stage as she shakes his hand.

Primrose doesn't cry, and I can't help but marvel. There is no older sister to volunteer for her this year; as a Victor, Katniss is kept from ever entering the arena again. But still Primrose seems composed, confident in a way that is so different from the girl we saw last year, crying and shouting after Katniss.

 _"This is truly the most outrageous luck any one person could ever know,"_ Caesar is saying, but I can't believe luck is to blame. I know probability, of course. I know unpredictability. But this seems undeniably by design.

I put a pin in that thought, knowing I'll need to think about it more later.

 _"I cannot, CANNOT imagine what must be going through our poor lovers' minds right now,"_ he continues.  _"Our poor girl-on-fire… she must feel so helpless, unable to take her beloved little sister's place this time. I wonder if—"_

The door to the car opens just then, and in saunters the younger of the two Mentors, oblivious to the turmoil on-screen. "You must be Caerwyn," Clyse says, voice a little slurred. "Fra was just telling me about ya."

I stand, quickly brushing my hands down my skirt. "That’s me! You must be Clyse," I'm still so shocked, I barely remember to hold out my hand. He shakes it, his own palm horribly sweaty. "Great to meet you." I'm relieved to see Fra enter the room only a step behind. His is the only truly familiar face in our little posse, and the small, sad smile he gives me from across the room works wonders for lifting my spirits. Fra leads a quiet life in District Ten, running the Library he opened as a young Victor, and while he is unassuming in personality and appearance his mind is razor sharp. He is my greatest resource and best ally, and I'm so glad he's here.

Clyse grunts. "Sure, good to meet you too. Well, anyway, you're not my Tribute this year, so too bad, I guess. 'May the odds' and all that shit." He walks away abruptly, muttering under his breath about how his Tribute ought to have shown up by now, as if he himself didn't make an appearance until thirty seconds ago.

Fra steps closer, eyebrows drawn together. "Caer. What is it?"

I realise my shock must still register on my face. "Primrose Everdeen is the female Tribute from Twelve."

Rhodendra, walking in just then, gasps dramatically, covering her mouth and grabbing the door frame for support, but Fra, curiously, only blinks. He hardly seems surprised at all. "That's terrible."

I make a note of that as well, but for now I just nod. "That's some exceptional bad luck. I mean,  _I'm_  pretty bummed and I've only been Reaped once."

Fra's expression softens, and he pulls me in for a hug. "I'm so sorry Caer, this should never have happened to you."

I shrug, determined to move past this and not cry again today. "Nothing that can be done now."

I mean it, too. There's no sense in dwelling on all the feelings and the horror of it all. I don't even have time to ponder the injustice of the whole system and the Hunger Games themselves for putting us through this. I can save that for another time; I've never been an idealist, and now would be the worst time to start.

"I want to win, Fra," I tell him simply. I pick at a loose thread on my dress. "Tell me what I need to do."

We sit down on the couch, while Rhodendra calls from the bar, asking if either of us want a drink. Fra doesn't really drink, and I've never had even a sip of alcohol, so we both decline politely.

"Have you heard about all the changes they've made?" He asks.

I shake my head. "Besides that we'll be in pairs? Are there many more?"

Fra gestures at the television; Caesar is apparently about to repeat them all.

_"Alright folks, so many of you have already heard about all the ways we're switching up the schedule of the Games to accommodate this year's Quarter Quell. Now, in case you've been living under a rock, this year Tributes will be put into pairs, one male and one female Tribute, and in these pairs they will be competing, and possibly winning. That's right, we might have TWO Victors this year!"_

I catch Fra watching me out of the corner of his eye, but he looks back at the TV when I turn to face him.

_"Now, we were all wondering how such a change would work, and this year's Gamemakers have come up with an absolutely BRILLIANT schedule to make the most of this exciting opportunity, INCLUDING giving citizens the chance to vote on their favourite Tribute pairings!_

_"So here's how it will work: when the Tributes arrive in the Capitol tomorrow morning, they will be sent to the Remake Centre, as usual, to be made beautiful and dressed right away for their interviews. Now this is a real switch, as usually their interviews are the night before the Games begin, but once the interviews are finished, voting stations will open in every District and in the Capitol, where for a small fee, would-be matchmakers can submit a ballot containing a pair they'd like to see matched. Even better, the fee will be split between the two Tributes mentioned on the ballot, the money going to their Mentors to provide them with funding for possible gifts while in the arena."_

"Shit," I say quietly. It's a brilliant idea, and it means that the most interesting Tributes will be getting sponsors before they even set foot in the arena.

Any plans I might have had to slip under the radar go flying out the window. Now, all that matters is getting the Capitol to love me, and want to match me with someone competitive.

"It's interesting, isn't it?" Fra asks, pausing the television. "Something you might be interested in: the day that they usually give to prepare for the interviews is the same day as your Remaking."

The implications of this are clear. "So most Tributes won't get the chance to go over their approach with their mentors and Escorts… not to nearly the same extent." I look back at the screen, at Caesar's face smiling mid-frame, and can't believe my luck. This shortened time frame will mean that most Tributes will likely still be in a bit of shock from their Reaping, not yet calmed and prepped by Mentors and Escorts to put their best foot forward in front of the country.

"I thought of you right away when I read that. You'll shine."

I smile. "And they always told me it was a bad practice to wing it for all of those presentations in school!"

My mentor chuckles. "And now that your ability to talk out of your ass is nothing short of prodigious, you get to put it to good use. Mrs. Hanniman is going to be thrilled."

"She always loved me, in spite of the hard time I gave her," I insist, leaning into the cushions as Fra resumes the program. "She _will_ be thrilled. She always told me I needed to apply myself and she’s about to get more than she asked for.”

I think of Mrs. Hanniman and the other teachers in District Ten, and across the country. How hard must it be to know that two of your students—maybe not yours personally, but students you’ve passed in the hallway or watched in detention—will be leaving for the arena every year?

I shake that thought from my head. _Focus._

Caesar continues on the television: _"Voting will be open for just over three days, during which time our Tributes will be in Training. The afternoon of the fourth day will be the Pairing Ceremony, at which point—you'll never guess—Tributes will be paired together for the duration of the Games. The next day they will be presented to the country for the first time as a unit, during the Tribute Parade._

_"The next three days will be spent in training once more, including each Tribute's solo session before the Gamemakers. The next day, Pairs will prepare for a second interview, this time together, and it is after this interview that the Gamemakers will release their scores for each Tribute, as well as for each pair._

_"And then, the most exciting part, ladies and gentlemen, the Games themselves! Tributes will be taken to the arena the next day, but just how the Games are going to work from there is a secret for the moment!"_ The entire audience groans, and Caesar gives a booming laugh.  _"I know, I KNOW; it's killing me too, but I'm sure whatever those Gamemakers have up their sleeves, it will be more than worth the wait."_

Fra turns off the television once Caesar announces they're going to replay the Reapings.

"So… we're in the Capitol for twice as long," I say, biting my lip. Caesar is wrong to suggest it’s the arena that makes up ‘the Games themselves;’ with these changes, the time spent before we leave the Capitol may be nearly as important. "That seems unusual."

Fra stands. "Care to take a walk around the train with me?" He holds out his hand.

I accept it hesitantly and he helps me to my feet. "…Sure. Where to?" This is suspicious, but I suppose he might not want to talk where others from the District Ten team might interrupt.

"Follow me."

My Mentor leads the way to the very, very back of the train, and then outside the caboose to the little platform hanging off the back of the car. The wind whipping around the train makes the glass rattle, and we need to speak very loudly to be heard.

"They're making a very big deal of these Games," he says, smoothing his thin, dark hair against the wind slipping between the panes. "Even more than the other Quells."

Fra was eighteen when he won the 52nd Hunger Games, so he's the only one on the train who remembers the last Quell. "Really?"

He licks his lips, looking around the little space. He taps his ear. 

Ah.

"The Capitol must be so happy about the chance for another pair of Victors," I say, raising my eyebrows.

Fra nods. "I'm sure they are."

"Maybe they'll be really lucky and these Victors will fall in love, too."

He grabs my arm, his eyes wide, looking at me intently. He nods once. "Maybe they will."

I remember the talk in District Ten after the Games were over; Katniss and Peeta broke the rules when they both won, there's no two ways about it. Whatever their motive, whoever's fault it was, they broke the rules and somehow lived to tell the tale.

I think again about Primrose being Reaped for the second year in a row. There's no way that was by accident, and now they're looking for another Victor duo?

They're not just  _hoping_  for another pair of lovers, I realise. They  _need_  one.

Primrose must be part of the price, but I wonder that that wasn't enough. District Ten has remained largely unchanged in the aftermath of those Games, but I remember a few arrests, a few disappearances, in the weeks and months immediately following. There are eleven other Districts; maybe things there were even more heated.

Maybe they still are.

I think I understand what Fra's getting at. They have a mess on their hands, and they're looking for someone to clean it up.

"They must be so excited to see who gets paired together," he continues.

I nod, trying to convey that I understand what he's  _not_  saying. "Then I need to find a way to get someone who's ready to do whatever it takes."

Part of me hopes they are listening—whoever  _they_  may be. If the Gamemakers hear that I'm willing to give them what they want it could make them predisposed to see me well paired-off, and beyond that, see me succeed through the Games.

It could also make them want to kill me off quickly, lest I spread the news that there is a problem big enough that the Capitol can no longer ignore it. 

"You're a smart girl, Caerwyn," Fra says, reaching for the door back to the train proper. "I'm sure you'll know what to do to win, when the time comes." He checks his watch. "Dinner is in twenty minutes—Rhodendra does  _not_ appreciate tardiness, and she's a good friend to have, so you'd best be on time."

"Does Rhodendra have connections in the Capitol?"

"She has some. Not a lot, but even one sponsor can make all the difference in the world in the arena. Keep her on your side and you keep the Capitol on your side, and as you know it's  _the Capitol_ that matters most."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song lyrics at the beginning are from Christina Perri's "Mine"


	4. Talk the Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the remaining time on the train before arriving in the Capitol, Caerwyn tries her best to prepare herself for the Games ahead in every way possible. Along the way, she may even form a tentative bond in an unlikely place.

_Chance is the only game I play with, baby_

_We let our battles choose us_

* * *

 

“No, Caerwyn dear, you’re still wobbling.”

I exhale loudly, for probably the forty-fifth time since dinner. “I’m trying not to, but the heel is like _this big_.”

“I know, it’s difficult, but beauty is _pain_ ,” Rhodendra says, as if explaining to a petulant child. “Come back this way again, and remember to keep you head up, and walk with _confidence_.”

“Confidence, sure. Confidence that I’ll break my neck if I go any faster.” I touch the far wall of the dining car and turn, like I’m running laps. I almost roll my ankle, but somehow I make my way back to where Rhodendra sits primly on a stool, plainly unimpressed. My lesson in walking in high heels has _not_ been going smoothly; the way she and all the other Escorts hop around in them all the livelong day gave me the impression it was easy, and not nearly so _painful._

“Really, dear, are you trying your hardest? That time you were practically stomping.”

I grit my teeth, forcing myself to smile. “I just need more practice.” I turn, walking back to the other side of the car. “I’ll get it in a few minutes.”

She sighs. “Well, don’t hurt yourself. Remember, you should be walking like you have a _purpose,_ but it should look effortless.”

We’ve been here for almost twenty minutes, and I’ve still not been able to take two steps Rhodendra is pleased with. It was my idea; when I saw the heels in my closet while getting ready for dinner, and when I remembered how so many of the female Tributes this year seem quite tall—present company excluded—I knew I needed to get some early practice walking in heels.

“No… no no no that’s all wrong. You can’t pivot on your heel like that.”

“ _You’re_ the one who told me not to be afraid to put weight on it!”

“Yes, but you must pivot on your toes, gracefully, like this.” She stands, takes a few steps and practically twirls on the toes of her shoes, the four-inch stiletto heel completely off the ground.

I throw up my hands, laughing. “How? How do you do it?”

She smiles, pleased with the praise that is only half meant as a compliment. “Practice. Try again.”

This time I turn on my toes, which isn’t as hard as I thought it would be, but she still frowns as I walk back across the car. I thought she would be at least a little impressed that I’m still vertical, but I guess not.

“You still look terribly uncomfortable with every step.”

“I can’t imagine why!”

She puts her hands on her hips, scrutinising as I turn away to walk back to the far side. After a few more turns I feel like I’m maybe _starting_ to get the hang of this, but when I turn back around after four laps she has her hands pressed together, tapping them against her mouth. “Now… now this is going to sound very crass, but when _I_ was learning to walk in high heels, my older sister gave me some advice.” She takes a deep breath, then hesitates a moment longer, deliberating. “You have to… the trick is, you have to walk like you’re… doing the deed.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Walk like you’re _what_?”

She sighs, exasperated. “Like you’re… you know. Being intimate.”

I stare at her, unable to believe what I’m hearing. “Walk like you’re having sex?” I burst out laughing. “How… how does that even work?”

Rhodendra shrugs delicately. “You just,” she lifts her hands. “You just do it.”

I’m still laughing while I make my way back across the car, trying to keep her sister’s strange advice in mind. And apparently despite the fact that I’ve no _actual_ experience to support my efforts—the trick really seems to work!

My Escort is plainly torn between pleasure and embarrassment at my progress.

“I know that was probably a last-resort piece of advice,” I say, continuing my circuit, “but I think I’m finally getting it.”

“Yes, well, I wasn’t going to say it unless you seemed absolutely a lost cause.”

Such a well-meaning woman, such poor delivery. “Gee, thanks,” I mutter.

She smooths her skirt. “Well, you are walking much better. Try going a little more quickly, now.”

We spend another ten minutes practicing, and by the time we’re done the balls of my feet are sore and I’m dying to take the shoes off. But, finally, Rhodendra gives me her approval, and so long as I’m not walking for very long hopefully no one will think I move with the grace of a newborn calf.

After our walking lesson, I go looking for Fra for some training that’s more up his alley. I find him in the car just past the bar car sitting on one of the couches, reading.

“Mind if I join you?” I ask, settling on the couch opposite.

“Of course not, please,” he gestures with one hand, not looking up from his book for a long moment. He bookmarks the page and closes the book, and when he looks up at me, I know I have his undivided attention, now that his chapter is finished. “You survived your lesson?”

I groan. “Only barely. How Rhodendra flounces around in those things for hours is a mystery, I tell you.”

Fra smiles. “I have no advice to give on that front, I’m afraid. What _can_ I do for you?”

“I’m wondering if we might work through my strategy. Although if you _do_ have any advice to give then please, advise-away.”

His fingers drum against his knee, and he looks out the window thoughtfully. “Well, I would first remind you that this whole ordeal is a performance. Your first goal is to survive, of course, but you must be constantly thinking of how to entertain. The moment the country is bored with you, that’s the moment you’re the most in danger.” He lifts one shoulder in a half-shrug. “I feel like there isn’t much I can tell you in terms of strategy that you don’t already know, or won’t be doing naturally. Telling you to be friendly and likeable is like telling the sky to be blue.”

“Well, I’m flattered,” I joke, even though I can’t help but beam at the praise.

He smiles. “I would, however, remind you that with the… theme, of this year’s Quarter Quell, you want to make the voters want to pair you with someone powerful, someone who will help keep you alive. It might sound cruel, but simply put: if they love you, they won’t put you with the twelve-year-old boy from Five who will practically need _you_ to protect him.”

This makes sense. I’m not sure how, practically, to do this, but keeping it in mind is the first step. “So I’m aiming to get with one of the Careers?” That’s easier said than done; last year was an exception, with the Careers bringing both Peeta from Twelve and Moran from Three into their group. Both decisions which would ultimately bring more harm than help, and will probably be a reminder to this year’s Career’s that they should keep their pack to themselves, as they usually do.

I think of what Nye said—was that only this morning?—about wanting to separate the Careers, and my heart sinks. This is going to be difficult.

“Not exactly,” Fra responds. “You Tributes don’t have any say in the matter of your partner. If you get paired with one of the boys from One, Two, or Four—or even the volunteer from Seven—then there’s nothing more that can be done. Of course, they could decide not to work with you, but that would be foolish when most of the other Tributes will be in pairs.”

And my interview will come after all of those boys’… “So I pick whichever one seems to be the best candidate and try to play off of him in my interview, hopefully making the Capitol think there’s chemistry between us.”

Fra considers this for a long minute. “That’s risky, Caer. Making a move on one of the Careers so publicly might put a target on your back. The others won’t take kindly to it. It might be enough to be friendly and memorable, rather than show your hand with an obvious maneuver.”

I shrug. “Then I make it less obvious. But I have to stand out somehow, and there might be other Tributes who are interesting. Besides, isn’t ‘all publicity good publicity’?”

Fra scowls. “Where did you read _that_?”

I laugh. “Some book I found it in _your_ library.”

He shakes his head.

“I just don’t think I have a lot of options,” I continue. “If I see the opportunity to put the idea out there of me and one of the better boys, I’ve got to go for it. If nothing else, the sheer scandal will keep the Capitol thinking of me. Some will like it, some might think it’s desperate, but if it distinguishes me then it’s all good in the end.”

“You’ve certainly gotten the hang of the way things work in the Capitol,” Fra remarks dryly.

“What can I say? I’m a natural bullshitter.” I grin. “Caesar and I will be the best of friends.”

“As I said: I certainly don’t think you need any help planning your interviews,” he admits. “You and Caesar will get along like a house on fire.”

I’m not worried in the slightest for my interview, either. Caesar can make even the most lifeless tribute seem fascinating, and I’m a born performer. We younger children of big families have to get attention somehow, after all. “So what about Training, then? What do you suggest for before the Pairing?”

“Try to learn as much as possible. Find something you’re good at, get better at it, and acquire at least one new skill. Don’t draw undue attention to yourself, but don’t waste your time by trying to slip under the radar either.”

That seems easy enough. It’s extra complicated with the Pairing ceremony coming later in the Games, and of course no one really knows how to play with a rule change like that. Nye and I have talked a lot of strategy over the years, but never under these circumstances. “What did you do, when you were training?”

Fra never talks about his own Games. I wasn’t yet born when he won, and as that was over twenty years ago I’ve never seen a re-run on the television. They tend to show the last ten or sometimes fifteen years of Games, and besides that only the greatest hits, like Four’s Porter Millicent Tripp’s back in ’39.

Sometimes it seems unbelievable that he really did win the Hunger Games as a teenager. Fra seems like the sort of man who’s always been around forty years old, with crow’s feet around his eyes and a sad sort of smile stretching his tired face.

It’s that smile I see now. “I was myself. I asked the trainers a lot of questions, tried to befriend them so they would give me extra advice.” He pauses, lost in thought. “I don’t remember many specifics from my own days of Training, to be honest with you. I remember spending some time at the first aid station, figuring out how to splint a sprained limb, how to slow bleeding, etcetera.” His eyes light up. “I brought some books along that you might care to look over. A survival guide or two, with everything from building fires that can go undetected to medical advice and surprising sources of nutrition. I’ll bring them to your room tonight, if you’d like?”

“Absolutely!” I reply quickly. “That would be great.”

“I would practice swimming one day,” he continues, looking out the window behind me. “You’ve done a bit of swimming in the creek behind your farm, but getting some practice in really deep water might be life-saving.”

I hadn’t thought of that. I add it to my ever-growing mental list. “What about weapons training?”

Fra frowns. “I’m not sure. You’re not going to become proficient at throwing spears or knives in a few days, and to an extent anyone can swing a sword with rather devastating results. I would advise you spend your time learning self-defence techniques instead of spending much time handling weapons.”

In my mind’s eye I see Nye swinging his shovel through the air. “At the end of the day I guess you can kill someone with just about anything, if you’re motivated enough.”

“That’s true, coarse as it sounds. Knowing how to protect yourself is far more valuable, especially when facing Tributes with all the training that the Careers likely have.”

I’m strong enough from a lifetime on the farm, and I know I’ve had fewer truly hungry days than most in my District. Still, all the Careers are significantly bigger than me, and stronger as well, I’d wager. I’ll need all the help I can get.

We hear a knocking on the door to the car, and we turn to see Jace poking his head inside. “Hey, sorry to interrupt, but do either of you want more chocolate cake? Clyse… got it in his head that we could eat a whole cake ourselves, but we can’t, and I don’t want to waste it if we don’t have to.”

They’re the first words he’s spoken to either of us—ever—having been silent all through dinner. I stand up, smiling. “Yeah, it’s the same cake we had at dinner?” He nods. “That stuff was delicious; I’d love some. I’ll grab you a piece too, Fra, if you want?”

He nods. “Thank you.”

I follow Jace back into the bar car, where he and Clyse must have set up a few minutes ago, judging by the Victor’s relative sobriety.

He looks up when I enter, scowling. “We could do it ourselves… why’d you bring her?”

“We’d make ourselves sick,” Jace replies. His voice is quiet, like he’s not used to talking much. “There’s no point in that.” Then, quietly so only I can hear: “I just hate to see it go to waste.”

Clyse continues to give me a dirty look as I cut two pieces, apparently having none of the same reservations.

“I’ll get the Avoxes to bring two more forks, if you want them,” Jace offers.

“Oh, thanks; we’ll need those; Rhodendra will kill us if she catches us eating with our fingers.”

He smiles. “Wouldn’t want that.”

We stand there awkwardly waiting for the Avox to return with additional cutlery, and I’m trying to think of something to say but keep coming up blank. These Games make the two of us enemies, fundamentally. We weren’t friends in District Ten—we didn’t even know each other—but it still feels strange to be standing beside this boy from the same place as me, who _might_ have become my friend under different circumstances, and know that in a few days we’ll be asked to try to kill each other. What do you say to someone in that situation?

The forks arrive.

“Thanks,” I tell the Avox, who doesn’t show any sign of hearing me. I turn back to Jace. “And thank _you_ for coming to get us. The extra cake will be good fuel for the rest of this crazy day,” I give him a knowing look.

He seems to acknowledge the craziness of the day, if I’m correctly interpreting the look in his eyes and the subtle dip of his head. “No problem.”

“And,” I add, “if you’re having any more problems finishing delicious desserts—pies, cookies, squares, anything—Fra and I would be only too happy to help you out in your time of need. You know where to find us.”

Jace cracks another smile, but Clyse snorts derisively. “Har. Well, better get on back to strategizing with Fra, or whatever. We’ve got work to do, if you don’t mind.” He gives me an expectant look.

Not one to miss my cue, I take the cake and leave.

Rhodendra comes to get me at quarter-to-eight the following morning, and finds me reading in bed.

“…did you sleep at all last night?” She asks, somewhat alarmed.

I nod. “Twelve years of waking up before dawn is a habit not easily broken, it turns out.” I close the copy of _Wilderness Survival 101_ Fra gave me last night, slipping from the covers. “I’m sure I’ll sleep better after starting training.”

I was up until just past midnight reading and thought that I would sleep in, but by six-thirty I’d been awake for nearly an hour and became sure I was done sleeping for the day. I hope I’m able to overcome my circadian rhythms soon; sleeping in was one of the things I told myself I was looking forward to before the Games begin.

Not this morning, though, and I’m anxious to make the most of every minute that could be spent preparing.

Today is May sixteenth—usually one of the best days of the year, with the Reaping behind you and the next one far, far away—but today the reality of the Games weighs on me like a heavy blanket. I do my best to shake it off as I pick out a nice dress from the closet, then put on the high heels from yesterday and get a little more practice walking in them. It does no good to dwell on it, I remind myself. There’s nothing I can do but stay alive.

Rhodendra courteously cheers my progress with the shoes, and I give a slight bow at her praise. “Now all I have to do is get used to wearing them for longer than ten minutes.”

Rhodendra smiles. “Sometimes you just have to grin and bear it.”

Easier said than done.

I rush through breakfast, knowing there is only so much time before we arrive in the Capitol, and wanting to finish _Wilderness Survival_ by then.

I’m leaving the table just as Jace arrives, and I tell him good morning as he takes a seat.

My hand is on the door handle that leads back towards my sleeping car when I pause, turning around. “Hey,” he looks up. “Fra has given me some books on survival and first aid… I’m almost done the first one. Would you want to read them too?”

He seems startled. I am a little as well; it’s not like it’s going to do me any good to help him survive in the arena. Still, I can’t help but feel drawn to help him in some small way. God knows Clyse is probably doing more harm than good with his “mentoring.”

“You don’t have to, if you don’t want to,” I say quickly, shifting my weight as the silence stretches. I didn’t mean to make him uncomfortable; I just wanted to do something to further extend an olive branch, after he reached out with the cake last night.

“No, actually that would be… nice,” he says finally.

“Great!” I smile. “I’ll get it to you as soon as possible.”

“Thank you, Caerwyn.”

I just smile again, as best as I can. We can’t be friends, but maybe we can keep each other company. Maybe we can even help each other out, a little.

An hour later I’m snug in the big chair by the window when the scenery outside the car catches my attention. I set the nearly-finished guidebook down on my lap, distracted for a moment by the incredible, brightly-coloured city starting to take form against a backdrop of mountains. As we get closer to the city and the scene grows clearer, my jaw gets closer and closer to the floor—the book all but forgotten.

I’ve never seen either a city or mountains before, not in real life. District Ten is much further south, and a bit further east, and the ruggedness of the landscape is a stark contrast to the sleek, gravity-defying buildings that make up the heart of Panem.

The engineering of some of the structures takes my breath away. A bright orange sky-scraper that rises in a spiral, two buildings in rich indigo and iridescent silver interlock in an optical illusion that gives them the appearance of expanding and contracting, like a great beast breathing.

As we descend into the city, the speed of the train turns it all into a blur of colour, and occasionally I can pick out the form of an oddly-dressed citizen walking down below the tracks. In a few more minutes, they appear more frequently, until they are a veritable wall of people as close to the tracks as they can get.

The train begins to slow down, and I can see some of their faces. I’ve seen some Capitolites on television before, so I know to expect outrageous outfits and bizarre facial reconstructions in pursuit of the latest trends in beauty, but even my wildest expectations are exceeded by some of the eccentric characters screaming themselves hoarse outside the train.

I make sure to smile wide and wave as we pass them by. It starts now, I think, leaning closer to the glass. From now on, I’m in the public eye almost every waking minute, and will need to be constantly trying to put myself forward in their minds.

We enter a tunnel after a few minutes of making friends with the crowd, and I return to my book. I’ve just finished it by the time Rhodendra comes to get me, a big grin on her face.

“It’s time, dear. We’ve arrived in the Capitol.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics from Glory and Gore by my main girl Lorde


	5. Sometimes I Just Can't Help Myself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The remaking and the first interview, and Caerwyn may have gotten herself in a wee bit over her head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy St. Patrick's Day to everyone celebrating!

 

_Got you wrapped around my finger, babe;_

_You can count on me to misbehave._

* * *

 

My mother grew up the only child of one of District Ten's many, many butchers. As the sole heir to her family's business, Mom started dressing birds when she was still a child. By the time she was twenty, she was working there about as often as her parents, and when Grandpa had a stroke when I was eight, Mom moved back home for a little while to help with the work load. And lucky for my grandparents, my mother quickly volunteered the oldest of her six children to help them whenever they needed it.

I remember the first time Mom told me it was my turn to go learn the tricks of the trade, and my expressed incredulity that I could be of any help. I'd already seen Nye get roped into helping, but I guess I never thought they would be desperate enough to ask for  _me._

"You're no younger than I was, when I learned," Mom told me, barely looking up from her cup of bitter coffee and the log book on the breakfast table to offer a reassuring smile. "You'll be helping Grandpa, and Grandma will be there watching the whole time. You'll be great at it."

I would be there for a week to learn how to do all of the jobs an eight-year-old could do, and then after that I would be returning for a day or two every two weeks. The same set-up as my three older siblings had all experienced.

My first job was helping bring the cages of chickens to the instrument I quickly dubbed the "murder board." I watched many chickens meet their bloody ends, that first day, and was glad when the following day I was told to work inside the butcher shop with my grandfather. In the days to come, I would learn how to pluck and clean the birds, and was in charge of separating and collecting the feet and purple livers, which would go back to the farmers for their own dinners. The chickens, once gutted and cleaned, I would place in plastic bags and into the freezers that would be transported around the country.

It was messy work, much of it, and the process of turning a dirty, squawking, feathered creature into something the Capitol deemed acceptable seemed like a terribly long and onerous one until I got the hang of it.

Oh if I'd only known I would one day be on the other end of such a process.

It's been three hours since I entered the Remake Centre. I'm starting to wonder whether or not I'll ever again see the light of day, or, like those thousands of chickens from my childhood, I will meet my grizzly end here on this cold table, stripped and plucked and dressed for consumption.

The trio responsible for my processing are three of the oddest-looking humans I've ever seen. I asked them for their names right away, and since then they haven't stopped telling me how very exciting all this is, how they hope I do  _so_  so well, and that they're so glad I'm not fidgety or frightened like all the  _other_ Tributes they've dealt with. This, of course, is because I've seen how messy things can get when a bird is determined to go down kicking and screaming. I don't tell them that; I just stay still as a statue on the table and grit my teeth while they rip the hair out of my body and cover me in strange, sweet-smelling creams.

Awlee is the small, chirpy one with skin a pale shade of blue that makes it look nearly translucent, and a bright pink head of curls that bob and bounce as she flits around, jabbing at my face with a pair of tweezers that I'm sure might claim one of my eyeballs at any second.

Hollonaos has long, glossy black hair that I'm  _incredibly_  jealous of, a jaw so sharp that it  _can't_  be natural, and something equally sharp in his gaze. I quickly realize that this glint is pure mischief, as he's constantly teasing Awlee and playing little pranks on her—like telling her my eyebrows are crooked.

Jinno is the third assistant, and seems to be the one in charge, if I'm reading the deference the other two show her correctly. She hardly says a word, and she might look focused if her innumerous surgical alterations would allow it. Butterfly wings for eyelashes, terrifyingly high cheekbones, and a nose raised to a sloped point so far from natural it looks cartoonish. Her head is shaved and covered in tattoos, and she barely says a word as she mixes some foul-smelling concoction in a bowl, then applies it to my hair.

I'm convinced they're just making things up, stalling for my stylist, who has yet to arrive. Jinno works the goo through my hair while Awlee rubs my limbs in a scratchy paste, and Hollonaos trims and files my nails before gluing long fake nails overtop.

Finally, after three and a half hours, Jinno looks at the clock, then nods in Awlee's direction. Awlee washes her hands and leave the room, presumably (hopefully) to get my stylist.

Following her back into the room is a small, pretty woman, and while I can tell she's no stranger to cosmetic surgery, she still looks fairly normal. Her ears are pointed in an elfin way, and when she begins to talk I see her teeth are delicately edged with a swirling gold pattern. It's strange, but not altogether ugly.

"My name is Vo; I am going to be your stylist for the remainder of the Games." She has a strange cadence to her voice, as well, not the normal Capitol accent. I've already been measured—it was the first thing the team did after getting me naked, but she walks around me critically, poking and pressing at my hips and waist. "You are… Care-ween?"

My parents allegedly named their six children traditional names from a culture over two thousand years old. Which is all well and good, cool even, but if I had a credit for every time I had to correct someone's pronunciation I'd be richer than President Snow.

I don't flinch when she cups one of my breasts, lifting it almost curiously. "It's  _Caer—_ like rhymes with fire—wen. It's tricky. You can call me Care, if that's easier." I smile brightly, not thinking about how strange this is.

Vo nods once, stepping back. "Caerwyn… alright." She beckons me with one hand over her shoulder. "Follow me."

We enter a separate room, where a hot meal is waiting. It's a little strange, sitting on the couch across from Vo, completely naked, being scrutinized while I eat, but I quickly shrug it off and focus instead on politely devouring the dish before me.

"You have excellent breasts," Vo murmurs, hands clasped at her chest.

"…thank you." I fight back a grin. I suppose she would know, having at this point inspected them  _very_  closely. The one and only boyfriend I had at fifteen, I recall, shared her opinion, though his experience was less… phlegmatic.

I take another bite of the mouth-watering chicken, trying not to think too much about my earlier poultry-centric musings.

"And your hair is wavy naturally?"

I shake my head. "I wore it twisted up overnight before the Reaping. Naturally it's more or less straight." Right now it's sitting on top of my head covered in rancid-smelling paste and covered in a plastic cap. I hope it's not all melting away, or anything like that.

She hmms, nodding slowly. I continue eating, very conscious of her scrutiny.

The silence stretches on; Vo continues staring me down like she can turn me into the perfect Tribute by sheer force of gaze. I take a drink, watching her out of the corner of my eye. "So… have you been a stylist for long? You look so young—you  _must_  be new."

She perks up. "I've been a stylist for five years, so I'm fairly new." She keeps smiling a little as she stares at me.

"And have you been with District Ten that whole time?"

She shakes her head. "I was with District Eleven my first year, then District Seven until now. This is my first year with your District."

My mind races, trying to remember even a single thing any of those Tributes wore. "No way! You helped design those green jumpsuits the Tributes from Seven wore in the parade two years ago? The dark, shimmery ones?"

Vo positively beams. "Yes! I and my partner, we were very pleased with those designs; I'm flattered that you remember them."

"Of course! I'm so relieved; it makes such a difference how good your stylist is and I was really worried I wouldn't get someone good. But I  _loved_ those suits."

I'm hardly even exaggerating. District Seven is stalwartly consistent in putting tree-themed Tributes in the parade, but the sleek silhouettes from two years ago were properly arboreally-evocative without being the same old leaves-and-branches we've seen for seventy years.

"I think you will like your dress for the interviews tonight," Vo says, standing quickly. "If you're finished eating, Jinno should wash the dye out of your hair now."

We return to the main chamber, and Jinno rinses my hair while Vo stands beside her and talks to me about my strategy. I explain to her about wanting to stand out and get paired with a winner, and she smiles slyly, like she has the secret to help me do just that. I'm curious about the dress she mentioned, but she says no more about it, and I figure I'll be seeing it soon enough and don't ask.

Vo then wheels me to a table with combs and scissors on it, and proceeds to cut my hair. I try to watch the floor from the corner of my eye, and see from the pieces of hair littering the floor that she doesn't seem to be cutting too much off.

Good. It took me forever to grow my hair this long.

"So I will tell you my vision," Vo says, snip-snipping away at a pace so fast it seems almost reckless. "You will be girly, cute, but sexy. You can be friendly, yeah?"

I almost nod, but catch myself before I completely ruin my haircut. "Yes."

She hums, cutting a fringe across my forehead. "And do you have a boyfriend or girlfriend back in your District?"

"No."

"Good."

She finishes cutting my hair, passing me over to Hollonaos with instructions for how she wants it styled. Vo gives a few more directions to the other two women, concerning makeup, it seems, before leaving us once more with promises to return with my dress.

I catch myself actually excited about this part of the process. Most of the time Tributes arrive at the interviews looking better than they ever have; there are no ridiculous costumes, and even if they're wearing more makeup than they realised could fit on one face the stylists tend to keep their looks less outlandish than the parade.

Plus, the  _dresses_.

I'm surprised at my instinctual reaction, never dreaming I would enjoy any part of the Games, but I shake off any lingering concern and pay attention to how delicious the spray Hollonaos is using smells.

He wraps strands of my hair around some bendy tubes, spraying all the while, and once my hair is all wrapped and twirled to his satisfaction and I'm desperately hoping this isn't the finished look, he holds out a panel.

I touch it and feel a current rush through my body and dance across my scalp. My hair is now miraculously dry, if this is the same device they had on the train.

In the mirror before my chair, I see Jinno approach stirring a small bowl. I think she's trying to frown.

"Vo wanted that size diameter?" It's impossible to tell from her face whether she disapproves or is simply surprised.

"She wants big, sexy curls." Hollonaos says, gesturing grandly. "Lots of volume. Half up in a cascade of ebony excellence."

Jinno purses her lips, sort of. Maybe she's smiling?

"What did she say for makeup?" I ask.

Jinno turns to look straight at me, and for the first time I notice (I must have been distracted by the butterfly-wing eyelashes) that her irises are large and poison green, with pupils in slits like a reptile. "Nude lip, smoky eye."

Hollonaos throws up his hands, still holding the curling sticks. "No bold lip? An outrage! What is Awlee supposed to do while you make up her face? Twiddle her thumbs?"

Awlee giggles, but Jinno's left eyebrow merely gives a barely-discernable twitch. "Her lips are too thin for a dark lipstick. And Awlee will be on body makeup, as usual, and she'll have enough to worry about shading her legs to look slimmer so don't worry about her being bored."

I bite my tongue to keep from smiling; Jinno really holds nothing back! Although I suppose this is good; I'd never have figured out what she thought of me from facial cues. "I didn't realise I had so far to go," I say. I've never had problems with self-confidence, to be sure, and while I wouldn't say I'm any exceptional beauty I've never given the size of my lips much thought. "And my legs are strong!"

Jinno pats my hand. "Of course, dear. All the Tributes have a way to go in the refining process before they can become truly beautiful. You've actually given us  _much_  more to work with than Tributes in past years." She begins dabbing a clear liquid onto my face with an uber-soft sponge. "Besides," she muses, "you'll have  _lovely_  cheekbones when you lose a bit of weight and let them show."

I can't help but laugh; it's a terrible attempt at a compliment, and if I've never been skinny on the sparse diet I'm used to I'm not even sure it's possible. "Well unless there's a banquet in the arena I imagine we'll see my cheekbones before long."

Awlee instructs me to remove the cape Vo put around my shoulders for the hair-cutting, and begins to work yet another substance into the skin of my arms, chest, back, and legs. She then takes a sponge and some coloured, creamy makeup and starts blending and shading, humming as she works.

It's another hour of processing before I'm a finished product—standing stark naked and barefoot, nearly every inch of my skin covered in makeup. It's been so long since the Remaking began I can hardly remember what my body used to look like. Have I always been this toned and poreless?

Turning in the mirror to get a better look at my hair, I see the shading has even made my shoulder blades look more prominent. They're mostly covered by the "big, sexy curls' cascading from where Hollonaos piled them on my crown, but the team seems to have spared no effort even on the parts of me that will be covered.

I touch the ends of my hair, not totally sure which pieces are mine and which are the extensions. Jinno's colour treatment has neutralised a the lightening my hair has received from years working in the sun, returning it to the near-black colour it is at my roots. I really like it, and the fringe parted across my forehead gives me some much-needed sex appeal, especially when paired with the dark powders around my eyes. My round face and butt-chin have always made me look young for my seventeen years, but Jinno has managed to make me look twenty. I'll need a more mature look if I'm going to be able to convince the country I'm in a serious relationship with my partner.

We all turn when we hear Vo enter the room, my dress laid out in her arms. She lifts it by the hanger so we can get a good look at it; Awlee and Hollonaos erupt in hysterical squealing while Jinno presses her hands to her mouth.

My dress is beautiful.

"Hollonaos, please fetch the shoes for me," Vo instructs, barely suppressing her own grin as he rushes to do her bidding. "Do you like it, Caerwyn?"

It looks about knee-length, strips and squares of thin, translucent fabric in shades of pastel pink and purple making up a skirt that looks lighter than air. The bodice is a dusty lavender, mostly sheer but for the cinched waist and the cups of the bust, which are a bit more opaque. I see why Awlee lifted my boobs up to shade them—that brassiere-like top is sure to hike them right up to my collarbone. "It's exquisite, Vo," I breathe, reaching out to touch it. With each movement, the colours seem to shift and swirl, creating a different, cloud-like look from every angle. "I love it."

She beams. "Well, I thought it was a perfect balance between girly and sexy. You'll have no shortage of admirers, I'm sure."

The dress feels heavier on than it looked in Vo's arms, but it fits me better than anything I've ever worn before. True to my estimation, my breasts are getting friendly with my chin, and the ever-so-slight transparency of the bodice means that to anyone looking for them, my nipples are just visible. It's no more revealing than the majority of dresses the older, female Tributes will undoubtedly be wearing, and I'm sure I won't be the most provocatively dressed girl tonight.

Hollonaos brings a pair of heels for me to slip into, and he and Awlee chirp and applaud when they see I'm already fairly adept at walking in them. They're a nearly-clear, iridescent lilac, a perfect match for the dress, with gel in the soles that makes them much more comfortable than the ones I practised in.

As I get used to them, walking around the room, I look in all the many mirrors and am mesmerized by the way the skirt swirls around my knees. I do a little spin (on my toe, like Rhodendra taught me) and it floats out dreamily, pinks and purples blending like coloured smoke.

I'm in love.

I return, laughing, to my styling team. "You guys all did such a good job. I feel ready to kick ass in this dress."

"And break some hearts, I'm sure," Hollonaos says with a seductive wiggle of his eyebrows.

Vo is all business. "You'll be spending from now until the interviews with your Mentor, preparing what it is you want to say I've called Rhodendra Lelless, she should be here any moment." She grabs my shoulders, looking me in the eye. I'm taller than her now, with the heels on. "I believe great things are in store for you, Caerwyn Dahl. We will see you right before the show starts to touch up your makeup, if necessary. May the odds be ever in your favour."

The couple of hours I spend with Fra pass much more quickly than I would like. While Fra's earlier assertion that I've never prepared for a school presentation in my life is  _true,_  I figure if there is a time to wing it a little less, it's now.

We go through the list of the male Tributes, watching and re-watching the footage of them at the Reapings and even some of them disembarking from their trains. There wasn't much on which to base our analysis, but we worked with what we could, and then with the remaining time looked at the female Tributes and categorized them as well.

I know all their first and last names and all of their ages. So now that we're queued up and waiting for the interviews to begin, I know who they all are, and can get a better chance to size them up.

Some of them are pretty good at appearing confident—were it not for the frequent brushing of hands against skirts and pant legs you almost wouldn't know how nervous they really are. Others aren't so good, with their foreheads shimmering with perspiration and their eyes wide in frantic in a look I've seen a hundred times in the butcher's shop.

Primrose is an exception. She looks absolutely stunning in a long gown of deep fuchsia, her long blonde hair in an elaborate braid over one-shoulder, decorated with gemstones and flowers and entirely reminiscent of her older sister. Her dress itself is clearly the work of the same stylist; there is some sort of optical illusion going on with the material as it doesn't have any apparent  _shape,_  but swirls and wraps around her frame like a heavy mist, or like it's just coloured light. I don't understand it, but it's incredible to look at.

Prim seems to hardly notice it, or any of us. She keeps her head high, her eyes forward, and without looking haughty she separates herself from the rest of us simply by  _being;_  she is Primrose Everdeen, and that is enough to capture and keep everyone's attention.

Then, of course, there are the Careers, who are  _real_  confident.

The six of them show very few signs of apprehension. The pair from Two look… not bored, exactly, but resigned. This isn't an area in which the Tributes from Two usually shine, and they look like they would rather avoid it entirely.

Idiots. This is more important than training.

The pair from One are the exact opposite. Chatty and relaxed, they're not-subtly pointing at the non-Careers and snickering. They don't notice me, I'm sure, because I'm not peeing my pants nervous nor am I trying to look tough, like poor Thane from Seven. He is, admittedly, brawny and passably good-looking, but he's not doing himself any favours by constantly flexing his shoulder muscles like he thinks he's a Peacekeeper guarding the president.

He's still one of my top choices, but there's an asterisk there reminding me that this nutcase volunteered and may, in fact, be a little insane. If he proves sane, however, and doesn't make a complete fool of himself with this interview, then he could be a very valuable ally. His status as a non-Career makes him more likely to approve of a girl from an outer District like Ten, and I should have an easy time convincing him that I can be useful for my ability to gain sponsors.

Thane notices me watching him, and I look away quickly, then turn back and give him a small smile. He seems startled, but gives me a sideways grin in return.

Jace is watching the whole interaction. He's frowning. "Really?"

I laugh. Several Tributes turn to look at the sound. "Can't hurt," I whisper. "Your suit looks really good, by the way."

He groans. "Come off it."

"No! I mean it!"

He gives me a Look. "My stylist couldn't get over how green my eyes were, apparently, and thought a copper suit was the only option. I feel like I'll blind the audience when the lights hit."

I look at his eyes. They are remarkably green. "Well the colour does work wonders to bring them out." I bat my eyelashes.

He actually laughs. Well, it's a chuckle at best, but it's something. "Your dress isn't half bad either."

"Oh this ol' thang?" I take hold of the skirt and swish it around my knees. "Thanks, Jace. I'm really happy with it. Don't think it does much for my eyes, though. Brown eyes are brown, after all."

He opens his mouth to say something, but he's cut off by a sudden deafening roar from the crowd. When it finally dies down, it is replaced by one of the best-known voices in Panem: the one and only Caesar Flickerman.

He works the crowd for a minute or two, and we backstage have gone still and quiet. There are several large screens back here, and we watch him in his twinkling midnight-blue suit strut around the stage, asking them if they're ready to meet the Tributes for this year's Hunger Games.

Of course, the answer is screaming and applause so loud it nearly makes my teeth rattle.

"Alright, folks, well I won't keep you waiting! You know I like to get right to the punch, so let's bring out our first lovely lady of the evening—Majestie Morrison from District One!"

More applause, shouting, screaming, etcetera, etcetera. Majestie doesn't walk across the stage so much as she seems to glide, her natural curls straightened and floating behind her like a cape. Her dress is silver, and looks like molten metal poured over the curves of her body. A slit to there shows off her dark, muscular legs, and with her heels on she's actually a hair taller than Caesar.

Her interview is a depressing way to begin the evening. She's charming, plainly intelligent, and flirtatious to just the right degree. She, clearly, has been training for all aspects of these Games, and everything she does cements her in my mind as perhaps the most dangerous competitor of the twenty-four. Rarely do you get a Tribute who is beautiful, smart, interesting, and dangerous, but in Majestie we get all of that and more. The applause as she leaves the stage is even louder than it was for her entrance, so clearly she's a favourite.

Her District Partner, Glint, does his best to compete with her, but even though he also is handsome and charming and dangerous, Majestie far outshines him.

I'm deeply engrossed in his whole interview, though, trying to figure out if there is anything there for me to work with. Glint is also a prime candidate for my machinations, especially since he's living in Majestie's shadow and seems to know it. District One Tributes tend to be the sort willing to do anything to get ahead, and I can see myself being able to convince Glint of my worth if I can get him as my partner.

Unfortunately, his interview doesn't give me much to work with. There's nothing I could build off of without being obviously artificial, and while I'm not against being seen as a schemer, throwing myself at Glint just seems… lame. He tells Caesar about his two younger sisters who are at home cheering him on, that his parents are so proud of him, and how he's been looking forward to this day for his whole life and is so glad to finally get the chance to make his family and his District proud.

He strides off the stage, waving confidently to the crowd. On to Two.

Farley's interview is an even bigger step down from Glint's. She's not especially funny, but cold, calculating, and a bit snobby. Caesar, of course, is masterful in his ability to create personality where it is lacking, but I can imagine the country looking away from their televisions in boredom while she's onstage. I'm paying close attention only because my life depends on knowing my fellow Tributes, but Farley is just plain boring.

Cato, the next on the program, is interesting at first only because the size difference between him and Caesar while they shake hands is comical, and Caesar makes a point of exaggerating this when he cranes his neck dramatically and shields his eyes to meet the Career's gaze.

But a few minutes into his interview—more of the same "make my District proud, yadda yadda"—something perfect happens.

"So Cato," Caesar says. "a little birdie told me that you were actually supposed to be in last year's Hunger Games. Do my sources deceive me, or can you confirm?"

A shadow briefly passes over the Career's face. It's gone in a moment, but my interest is piqued. "It's true."

"Tell me about that; what made you decide to wait another year?"

His fingers start to drum on his knee. "My father volunteered in and won the 49th Hunger Games, which you know, I'm sure. He always… encouraged me to volunteer, and I thought it would be fitting to do it the year before the Quell, like he did."

"That certainly would have been very poetic," Caesar remarks.

Cato looks like he could not care less about the poetry. "As the Reaping got closer, I got thinking about the Quell, and I decided it would be worth it to wait a year to get to be a part of something even bigger and better." His fingers continue drumming, faster now. "It worked out well; a friend of mine, Dominic, really wanted to volunteer and would have been too old this year, so he volunteered last Games instead."

For the tiniest second, surprise registers on Caesar's face. Apparently, his source neglected to tell him this part of the story. Caesar now has the tricky task of backpedalling away from the subject of last year's Games and the horrific, gruesome death of Cato's friend and replacement. "That's incredibly generous of you. I'm sure, looking back, you're glad you decided to wait. I mean, very few Tributes get to compete in a Quarter Quell, and here you are!"

Cato nods stiffly. "I am glad to be here. I've learned a lot in the past year, and I think… having seen the mistakes Dominic made—" his Adam's apple bobs sharply, the only indication besides the drumming that he's anything but completely at ease; his face remains completely blank "—I've learned from them. I'm far more prepared now than I would have been."

"It is important to learn from the mistakes of the Tributes before you," Caesar agrees sagely. "And I'm sure you're quite a force to be reckoned with! How tall are you, exactly?"

I hear him answer a staggering hundred-ninety-six centimetres, but my mind is elsewhere.

This is the opening I need.

Fra and I discussed Cato, of course, like we did all the other male Tributes, before the interviews began. His permanent scowl and aura of aloofness paired with what we knew of his District and the Tributes it tends to produce made me think he probably had anger issues, and while we knew he was undoubtedly able to kill with breathtaking ferocity, we decided he wouldn't have much to offer by way of a narrative people could root for.

He wouldn't be interesting, in other words. He'd be just like Dominic last year: an unhinged psychopath prone to foolish errors of ignorance, dangerous both as an enemy and as an ally.

But this.

I watch him closely for the rest of the interview, amazed at what I'm seeing, and what I'm not seeing. Sure, he's not animated or engaging in any way, but he's not pulling the classic District Two act of being a boring, single-minded killer. He's making an effort—a poor one, but an effort—to actually answer Caesar's questions.

I can hear Fra's voice in my head telling me to leave it. It's too dangerous; he wasn't even on my list; it's more likely to blow up in my face than work out in the long run.

But the opportunity is here, and it would be so easy...

As the interviews continue, and I watch Logan from Four and eventually Thane from Seven give mediocre interviews, I know what I'm going to do.

"And now, from District Ten, Caerwyn Dahl!"

It registers somewhere in the back of my mind that Caesar must have asked someone on my name's pronunciation, as it's impeccable. I cross the stage, smiling and waving and smiling some more, and offer my hand, which he bends and kisses like some knight from an old fairy tale.

Up close I can see the lines in his face that you can't on television, but I notice they're all crinkles around his eyes and smile lines around his mouth. He's old, I realise, but he's like an endearing grandfather.

"Caerwyn, Caerwyn dear, so good to meet you! I am pronouncing your name correctly, aren't I?"

I nod, still smiling (always smiling). "I think you're the first person to ever get it on their first try… or did you cheat and ask my Mentor?"

Caesar looks scandalized. "Cheat? Well I never…" he looks out in the audience, who laugh good-naturedly. He turns back to me.

"Maybe a little?"

"Alright, a little," he admits, defeated. "It is a lovely name, though!"

"Thanks! It was a birthday present."

This earns me a laugh and applause from the audience.

Caesar, of course, laughs the loudest. "I see I've more than met my match in wit where you're concerned, my dear. And you don't seem nervous at all! Are you nervous?"

"No, actually, not at all! I've got so much practice bullshitting—" I cover my mouth. "Sorry, I shouldn't swear on TV; my mother will have my hide!"

More laughs.

"It's alright dear, she'll never find out," Caesar says with a wink at the camera. "You've got so much practice…"

"…faking my way through presentations at school, I thought this wouldn't be much different," I continue. "And, of course, you're a much better audience than my teachers ever were."

"Well, I'm flattered. I suppose practice does make perfect!"

"As in all things, I think. And goodness knows I've watched enough interviews to feel like I know my way around them. They're one of my favourite parts, every year." I lean forward in my chair. "One of my brothers and I would always watch them together and argue about our favourites." I laugh, as if just remembering something. "We also used to do our own commentary during the Games. We thought we were the seven-and-eight-year-old versions of you and Claudius Templesmith."

Caesar raises his hand to his heart. "I'm touched! It's so rare I get to meet a true, longtime fan!"

I laugh. "Oh, we're certainly big fans. I always thought it would be really fun to have your job."

He adopts an expression of feigned worry. "Exactly how long have you been planning to put me out on the street?"

"Oh Caesar, I could never replace you!"

He looks suspicious, then chuckles. "Well, I hope not! How did this all begin, with you and your brother?"

Perfect. "Well, and I hate to be a downer, but it's actually a bit of a sad story. Francis, one of our Victors in Ten, is a close friend of my family's. He's an excellent Mentor, of course, but from the time I've been old enough to watch the Games, he's only had one Tribute come home. My siblings and I would always ask him what he thought distinguished the Tributes who end up Victors, and he put many grand ideas into our heads that made us think we were… smarter, I suppose, than the average Tribute. We became experts in our own minds, I suppose.

"Now that I'm here, I know I was too quick to judge. I understand more of the intricacies of the Games, and how determined and careful you have to be to win." And here we go. "Cato said it earlier, and it's crazy because I was thinking the exact same thing, but you really have to pay attention to not just the winners who've come before you, but the losers, and learn from their mistakes if you're going to win."

It's as easy as that—Caesar's eyes alight with a mischievous glimmer. "You certainly are a girl who pays attention."

I blush, looking away for a moment, and the noise from the crowd swells. When I look back at Caesar, the glimmer in his eye has turned into a bright spark.

"My dear, have I embarrassed you?" He teases. "My apologies, sincerely. Although you know, you'll be paired with one of these lovely young men, and you ought not to be embarrassed if you have a favourite."

"Oh, no… I just… I was thinking the same thing, is all," I stammer, regaining my composure with exaggerated difficulty.

Caesar pats my hand. "Alright, well I shan't embarrass you any more. So long as you promise you won't try to put me out of a job!"

I giggle. "I promise."

The rest of the interview passes smoothly, with Caesar asking me about home, my family, and what message I want to send to the Capitol. "I'm incredibly stubborn," I admit, when he asks. "So I'll have to tell them that I'll not lose easily. I'm determined to make it back home, and I'm willing to do whatever it takes."

I spot Fra the second I turn to exit the stage. He's waiting just off-camera, plainly trying to intercept me before I even make it backstage.

I raise an eyebrow at his anxious expression. "That bad, huh?"

"Caerwyn," he says, taking my arm and steering me away from the others. "What in the world have you done?"

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the most part, all of Caer's dresses are inspired by actual dresses in real life. Her dress in this chapter is a GORGEOUS tea-length Marchesa from the Spring 2017 Ready-to-wear collection. If you want to see it, google that collection and go to the Vogue slideshow; it's number 11. Additionally, I have Pinterest boards for Caer, Cato, and this fic, so if you want to check them out, come find me at mavfrick (Mav L) or search It Might Kill Me as a board on Pinterest. You'll find outfits and faceclaims (sort of) there, plus some extra stuff, if you feel like it! 
> 
> Much love!
> 
> Lyrics from Marina and the Diamonds' "Primadonna"


	6. Prior Mistakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the aftermath of the interviews Caerwyn closely considers her Mentor, and makes a new friend in Training.

_And the wheels just keep on turning,_  
_The drummers begin to drum,_  
_I don't know which way I'm going,_  
_I don't know what I've become._

* * *

 

Rhodendra comes to wake me up the next morning at seven AM, and for once in my life I’m actually sleeping at that hour.

Jace and Clyse aren’t awake yet, so it’s just Fra at the breakfast table when I arrive with our Escort. He doesn’t look up when we enter, reading something on an electronic tablet beside his plate and cup of coffee. The second I sit down, a veritable storm of instructions and schedules begins pouring forth from Rhodendra’s mouth.  

I pay half attention, knowing the schedule for the day well enough by now, and look around the room as I munch. We got back to our apartments in the Tribute Centre so late last night, and I was so distracted by Fra giving me an earful about my interview that I hardly noticed the beauty of the rooms around me. My whole house in Ten could fit inside here several times over, and there seem to be some rooms with no real purpose besides giving the four of us more space than we could ever possibly need.

And more food, of course. I look around the breakfast table, at the trays piled with pastries, pancakes, sausage, back bacon, all types of eggs, waffles, and other dishes I’ve never seen before and can’t begin to describe. Avoxes wait around the table with pitchers of fresh juices—orange, apple, grapefruit, pomegranate—and syrups and sauces sit in cute little jugs beside each of our plates. The food before us could feed all eight members of my family until we were stuffed, and it’s laid out for only my Mentor and me.

Fra picks at his relatively plain breakfast of oatmeal, hard-boiled eggs, and an orange. I’ve never had an orange before, but I’m on my second glass of orange juice before ten minutes has passed, and I’m _loving_ it. The exotic fruit seems to be the only concession to luxury that Fra is willing to make; he’s even dressed plainly.

I’m not mad at him, exactly, for last night, but there’s some tension in the air between us, and we don’t meet each other’s eyes much while we eat.

I was surprised when—once we were in the shuttle that would take us to the Tribute Centre—Fra didn’t have much of anything to say about me going after the boy from Two, even though it went against everything we’d discussed prior to the interviews. Instead he gave me grief for the way I spoke about previous Tributes from Ten, claiming I’d made it sound like I thought they all had just lacked the guts and smarts to win. And what’s worse: I made it sound like he thought that as well.

Never mind that I qualified all of my comments, and made sure to say that I now know that things are different than they seemed when I was just a spectator of the Games, Fra took issue with this portrayal. We spent the whole shuttle ride and journey up to the tenth floor arguing about whether or not I’d really done this or if it was really a big deal and by the time I got to my room I was so tired that all I wanted to do was go to bed.

This morning I’m well-rested and thinking more clearly, but his words still stick with me in a way that makes me a bit uncomfortable.

“I’m sorry if I berated you overmuch last evening,” he says when Rhodendra leaves, as if reading my mind. He nudges his glasses higher on his nose. “I didn’t mean to attack you for your interview; I realised after you went to bed last night that I never actually mentioned how well I thought you did, despite what we talked about last night.”

I’m not surprised that he’s the first to extend the olive branch. I’ve never been good at apologies, tending to try to make amends rather than actually admit I’m wrong. “You’re forgiven, of course,” I answer quickly. “I know you were—and are—only trying to help me as much as you can.” I take a deep breath, and offer a small smile. “I’m sorry if I made you look bad back in District Ten.”

Fra gives a short laugh. “Goodness. Don’t worry about that; God knows I can hardly sink lower in the estimation of the good people of our District.” He gives a rueful half-smile. “If I can spare you the same fate of alienating yourself from your neighbours, that’s enough. I don’t much care if they all despise the sight of me.”

Rhodendra comes back into the room as he says this, and looks alarmed. “Francis! Why… what ever do you mean?”

I look down at my plate, trying to figure out if my stomach has room for the last sausage and small pile of eggs. Ostensibly, at least, because I also don’t want to see the look on Fra’s face as he tries to explain without explaining the situation to this clueless Capitolite.

Rhodendra can’t be blamed for her ignorance, not really. When Fra came home from his Hunger Games over twenty years ago, he was, as all Victors are, different from the person he was before he went into the arena. I wasn’t born yet, so I don’t know the details, but I know that a few years later he published a book looking critically at the Hunger Games as a social and political device, concluding that they are a necessary and beneficial tradition.

Understandably, everyone in Ten who ever knew anyone who was killed in the Games was outraged, and Fra immediately became a traitor and a conformant in their eyes. District Ten is a mind-your-own-business kind of place for the most part, and while our denizens are kind, they aren’t exactly open-minded.

I’ve never read the book, so I don’t know if Fra has been maligned by a group of people who can’t understand the nuance of his work, or if the book is all they claim and he wrote it for some other reason. I’ve wondered for years, but I’ve never had the nerve to ask him why he did it. And he doesn’t even have it in his library, so I can’t investigate on my own.

Either way, Fra is an incredibly smart man, if a bit paranoid (as evinced by his words last night) and I’m sure whatever the truth is, writing the book was the result of careful calculation. Everything Fra does is.

Rhodendra may or may not know about the book, but regardless Fra can’t very well explain to her that our entire District—and all of Panem in fact, save the Career Districts and the Capitol—think the Hunger Games are a depraved abomination and that the people who support them are all worth less than dirt.

“It’s not easy being a Mentor,” he says eventually, en lieu of the truth. “Families and friends all seem to think it’s your job to bring their loved ones home. There’s always more I could have done, in their minds, and I don’t think any of them will easily forgive me or believe that I did what I could, what I had to.” He looks up at me, something passing in his gaze that makes me think he’s not exactly lying. “If I can bring Caerwyn home, though, it doesn’t matter what they say. I do my job, and sometimes I even do it well.”

This satisfies our Escort, who looks at her watch and gasps. “Half past! Those boys need to be up by now… and Caerwyn your Team should be arriving any moment to help you get ready for Training this morning, you had best finish breakfast promptly and go clean your teeth.”

As she predicts, I’m met outside my bathroom by Vo and Jinno, a large bag in each of their arms.

Vo smiles, doing a little dance with the bags held out. “Are you ready to begin?”

I obviously don’t need as much styling for Training as I did for the interviews, and since my eyebrows and body hair haven’t magically grown in overnight, there is only a bit of makeup to put on and my hair to style.

My hair is freshly washed, and Vo styles it quickly with big waves in a high, voluminous ponytail while Jinno holds my chin with an iron grip and paints my face.

The whole process is quick and intense, and leaves no room for conversation. I mull over Fra’s breakfast comments and try to catch a glimpse of my face in the mirror across the room instead.

Jinno keeps the makeup plain, she explains quietly, because it ought not to seem like we’re trying too hard just for Training. But of course, if I’m to be successful in seducing a Career (yikes) then it pays to look my best, and a thin layer of foundation with some blush and mascara will do the trick nicely.

She does a little more of what she calls “contouring” on my face and chest once I’m dressed, and of course, the tight athletic leggings and sleeveless top are designed to squeeze and lift my body into the shapes the Capitol finds desirable.

It’s ten after eight and I’m a finished product, allowed to get up and inspect the duo’s work in the full-length mirror. I do still look like myself, except for the glossing over of any physical flaws.

“Amazing job, once again,” I tell them, turning back around. “And not to be inanely repetitive, but I loved all you guys did last night. I got back to my room and couldn’t believe it was really me I saw in the mirror.”

Jinno simply nods, but Vo lifts her chin and smiles widely, which is how I’ve noticed she usually responds to praise. Dad always says I do the same thing when I receive a compliment. “You had no trouble getting the makeup off? You found the shower setting?”

Oh, the shower. I was dreading taking off what I was sure was pounds and pounds of makeup, but upon entering the shower and fiddling with the fancy panel for a minute or two, I found a setting which sprayed me with a thick, funny-smelling foam that quickly turned the same olive brown as my skin and washed all the makeup down the drain. “I did. It was magical.”

Vo continues smiling and murmurs her approval, quickly cleaning up their work station.

They leave the apartment minutes before Rhodendra herds together the remaining members of the District Ten coterie and orders us off for Training. It starts at eight-thirty, and she does her best to impress upon us the perils of arriving late. Jace and Clyse are slow in arriving, so Fra and I set off without them.

The elevator ride down to the main floor is as exciting as the one last night, and this time I’m much more awake to experience it. We’re joined by the group from Seven, and later from Four, and I make sure to give tiny, polite smiles to everyone except Finnick O’Dair, who gets a full-on grin before I’m able to control my twelve-year-old’s heart.

He is even more beautiful in real life, and I’m glad there’s no opportunity or necessity for introductions on the short trip because I’m sure I would say the dumbest thing ever and then simply die of embarrassment if I spoke to him.

Instead, Finnick is offhandedly flirty with the female Mentor from Seven—the infamous Johanna Mason—who doesn’t so much as give him the time of day. I can’t help but admire her, too. As someone who has always felt the need to be well-liked, Johanna Mason’s I Don’t Give Even a Single Fuck attitude has always impressed me. Sometimes I wish I could be a little more like that.

Although, I can’t say that’s how I would act if it was _Finnick O’Dair_ trying to flirtatiously ask me how my night went.

But watching them and the other Victors together starts me wondering about life after the Hunger Games. Obviously many people have made the transition from Tribute to Victor, but even among the five in the elevator, there is a huge disparity in their success.

Finnick would seem to be the best adjusted, being from a Career District himself and having almost floated his way through the Games thanks to an inundation of sponsors. Not to say he didn’t go through difficulties, but his experience was markedly different than, say, Blight’s. The District Seven Mentor is all rough edges and substance abuse problems, and the glimmer of panic in his eyes and the sweat on his brow seem to indicate his own hellish Games still haunt him despite how long ago they passed.

Johanna, Fra, and Ginny, the female Mentor from Four, all seem to fall somewhere in the middle. Ginny volunteered, if I remember correctly, unlike Finnick, but her in-arena experience was far different from his and she looks fifty, even though she won a few years after Fra and couldn’t yet be forty. Johanna is just angry all the time, not even bitter so much as ferociously indignant, and is one of the few Victors who have ever expressed open disgust with the Capitol. In her Games she was brutal and methodical, and it seems she’s the same in person.

Then there’s Fra.

My Mentor has never openly disgusted anything in the whole time I’ve known him, and he’s certainly not a grouch or a flirt, and definitely would never have volunteered. He’s different from the other four, but then again, no two of them are really alike.

I remind myself that have one critical similarity: they are all the sort of people who, when the going got tough, were willing to do whatever it took.

_Maybe some of them still are._

We reach the Training gymnasiums and the Mentors and Tributes part ways. Fra and the others will be going to either watch their Tributes’ progress from a balcony in the complex or, as the unique schedule of these Games permits, they will be out in the Capitol trying to garner interest in their Tributes from prospective sponsors.

I’m not sure what Fra will be up to, but it doesn’t much matter; I trust him to do whatever is best, and I have other things to pay attention to this morning.

About half of the twenty-four of us are present when I enter the complex. The pair from Four immediately move to join the other Careers, and the pair from Seven just stand to the side, near the back of the group.

I’m comfortable in groups, but this is next-level awkwardness. Besides the six Careers, no one is talking, or hardly looking at each other. I understand the hesitation, and I find myself shifting my weight from foot to foot, not sure what my strategy requires me to do at this point.

I notice Primrose standing nearby, also alone, and I decide she, of all people, is probably a safe person to befriend.

“Your interview last night was really good,” I say quietly, stepping up beside her.

She jumps a little at the sound of my voice, but then smiles shyly. “Really? Thanks.”

I nod. “And I _loved_ your dress! Do you have the same stylist your sister had?”

At the mention of Katniss, Prim brightens infinitesimally. “Yeah, actually. His name is Cinna.”

This little nugget of information encourages me. I don’t know what I would have done if Prim had given me the cold shoulder. “I’ve seen him on tv, I think,” I say. “He seems like a pretty nice guy.”

“Oh, I like him a lot. He even helped Katniss get into designing last year… I don’t know if you saw, but she designs some dresses now.”

I _had_ heard about that, and her talent certainly seems prodigious for someone just starting out. “Of course! My styling team were actually talking about her collection a bit yesterday. They’re _obsessed_.” I look over my shoulder; the Careers are still talking and not paying attention to us. But Prim seems as happy as I am to chat to relieve the tension, and it won’t hurt to make friends with her, of all people. “Did you get to meet Cinna when he was helping Katniss?”

She nods. “Yes. He made lots of phone and video calls, and came to visit before Katniss went on the Victory Tour. He’s really… he’s really kind. It’s nice having a friend through all of this,” she says, then bites her lip. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to brag or anything—

“No, no don’t worry about it,” I wave away her concern. “It’s shit. All of this. My Mentor is a friend of my family’s, so I’ve known him for a long time. It _is_ nice to have someone familiar to go through this mess with, so I get that.”

She visibly relaxes, and I can’t help but smile. This poor girl… no one should have to go through this, but especially not someone so young and sweet as Primrose Everdeen. Especially after the madness of this past year for her family: Katniss in the Games, becoming the family of a Victor, the engagement, the speedy, over-the-top Capitol wedding, and now this.

“Katniss is great to have around too,” Primrose adds, then suddenly looks sharply behind her. There’s a large mirror high on the wall, and I realise it must be one-way glass, concealing our Mentors.

“Is she going to have your hide for talking to me?” I ask, grinning.

She blushes. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.” I hold out my hand. “I’m Caerwyn, by the way.”

She accepts the handshake, smiling again, tentatively. “I’m Prim.”

I raise an eyebrow. “You don’t say?”

She giggles. “Sorry.”

“No need for apologies. I hope your sister doesn’t give you grief for fraternizing with the enemy. _She,_ after all, had alliances of her own.”

Prim ducks her head. “I’ll get an earful when Training is over no matter what I do. Katniss would turn me into a Career in only a few days, if she could do it just by wanting it badly enough.”

A bell sounds, and an instructor appears, ready to give us our introduction to training. “I know the feeling,” I whisper back, before she begins.

Prim smiles.

I don’t have any difficulty in deciding where to go first, once the trainer—Atala—finishes her little speech. My conversation with Nye comes back to me, and I make my way immediately for the stations teaching survival techniques: fire starting, swimming, shelter-building, and trapping.

Clyse’s Games are one of the earliest that I remember firsthand, not just from re-runs on the television, and they stand out in my mind as I work on building a smoke-free fire. The arena that year was a frozen wasteland, and many of the Tributes died at the proverbial hands of the elements or wild animals. It was boring by Capitol standards, so I don’t expect the arena this year will be anything so severe (the Quell is supposed to be _extra_ exciting, after all) but still, having watched the repercussions of under-preparedness play out in such a drastic way, I’m determined not to make the same mistake. Even in a relatively normal arena, like last year’s, poor survival instincts can kill you with frightening alacrity.

Our female Tribute from last year, Marita, who was killed half by Peeta and half by Dominic would attest to that, I’m sure. Were she alive to do so.

The instructor at this station is a forty-something-year-old man with a stern, fatherly face, unmarred by more than a few surgical alterations. He’s one of those people who are gruff but seem kind, with whom I immediately want to distinguish myself. But I’m not very good at building smoke-free fires, apparently, and Elias frowns at most of my efforts.

“No, see, you’re digging that hole wrong,” he says, referring me back to his own model. “You want the second tube to connect _just_ above where the base of the fire is burning, so the flame can suck the oxygen from the surface.”

I didn’t even know it _was_ possible to build a smoke-free fire until I read about it in one of the books Fra gave me, but after forty minutes and two successful fires above ground, Elias agreed to teach me when I asked.

The trick, according to the book, is in choosing fuel that burns quickly, as smoke is generated due to an imbalance in the levels of fuel versus oxygen. Pieces of wood that burn quickly, then, are necessary, but the real secret is in digging a slightly U-shaped hole, the two “chimneys” creating a pressurized system which pulls air underground and provides the fire with a constant source of oxygen.

The science of it is fascinating, and while I understand _that_ aspect easily, I’m struggling with its execution.

“Is my tunnel too high, then?” I ask, peering over Elias’s shoulder to look at his fire.

“Yes, unfortunately. Luckily, you should be able to dig it a little deeper without compromising the integrity of the tunnels.”

Well that’s good, I guess.

Once again, the practice proves to be my undoing, and my tunnels collapse over my unlit fire.

I sit back, sighing. “Awesome.”

“It happens,” Elias says, though he sounds more disappointed than encouraging.

“Better now than in the arena, I suppose,” I say, trying to sound chipper. “Can I try again?”

“Sure.”

He presses a button and the dirt redistributes in the box we’re working in, like magic. My second try is marginally more successful; I get the chambers built without causing a collapse, and Elias seems to think I’ve finally done it right.

I’m struggling to light the little bunch of twigs and bark at the bottom of the hole when a voice speaks from behind me. “Why is the fire underground?”

In my surprise at the question, I knock a part of the tunnel down, dirt falling down onto the fire, extinguishing it.

I turn around. “Prim! I almost had it!”

She looks horrified. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you—”

I interrupt her rushed apologies with a shrug of my shoulders. “I haven’t been able to get it once in the last half hour; _you’re_ certainly not the problem.” I shift over in the dirt box, gesturing for her to take a seat. “Come join. I’m trying to build a smokeless fire, and I’m terrible at it.”

Elias, wisely, keeps silent.

Prim sits down, peering into the hole. “Is it smokeless if it’s underground?”

I explain to her why it works, and Elias nods along, letting me know I’ve not made any mistakes in my lesson.

“Would you like to try, as well?” Elias asks her. Prim responds enthusiastically, and he even _smiles at her._ I try not to go green as I look at Prim. What it must be like to be beloved by all who meet you.

Elias and I try to salvage the remains of this attempt while Prim begins digging her own tunnels, and after several more minutes and some very careful reconstruction, a little fire is lit in mine.

“Finally!” I exclaim, collapsing backwards. It’s only been forty-seven minutes. “Now what?”

“You have to keep feeding it—bigger pieces after a while, but not too big,” Elias replies. “Too big and it will start to smoke.”

I follow his instructions, and my fire continues to grow smoothly, with a little smoke at first, but I get the hang of it. I expect Prim to be a whiz with fires—her sister being the Girl on Fire and everything—but as I look over at her progress I see she struggles almost as much as I did on her first attempt.

Still, with Elias’s gentle instruction, she gets it on her second try, and soon we both have smokeless fires going.  

It’s interesting to watch the way the older man’s demeanour changes when he’s working with Prim. It’s like watching someone handling a spooked horse, the way his voice drops and his movements slow down, like he doesn’t want to startle her.

I wonder if Prim notices these things. I wonder if she cares that everyone seems to think she’s this fragile creature who needs protected. Jealous as I may be of the way everyone seems to love her implicitly, I don’t wish for their pity.  

We’re just finishing up at this station when the bell rings for our lunch break.

Prim seems startled by this, as she seems to be by many things. “Lunch time already?”

“Time sure flies when you’re failing miserably,” I mutter. “I hope our arena is _warm_.”

We get our food from the buffet, and without speaking of it, we choose a table for ourselves—the only Tributes from different Districts sitting together besides the Careers.

About halfway through the meal, Prim is pushing something called pasta salad around her plate, obviously thinking hard. I wait for her to say whatever it is that’s on her mind, having my own suspicion what about.

“So… you mentioned earlier about Katniss’s alliance with Rue…” she begins, trailing off into a pensive silence before resuming. “Did you mean… I mean, you said—”

“I said she had alliances of her own,” I fill in. “I’d ally with you, if you wanted it. Is that what you’re wondering?”

She looks up. “You really would?”

A pang stabs through my chest. “I really would.”

“But… why?”

I stare at her for a moment, assessing whether or not she could possibly be joking. She isn’t. “Honestly? I feel like you’re someone I could trust, and you’re everyone’s favourite. You’re just as powerful as a Career, Prim; you have the whole country rooting for you.”

She seems to concede this. “But I don’t have any weapon skills.”

I grin. “I think all you’d have to do is carry a bow around and people will pee their pants to see it, even without seeing you shoot. And you’re a healer, aren’t you?” I remember Katniss mentioning that last year.

She’s plainly surprised that I know this. “Yeah, I mean a little. I help my mom some, back home.”

“Perfect. If my partner doesn’t want to work with me, or if he dies in the bloodbath or something, I’d want someone watching my back, and who better than someone who has healing abilities, and whom the whole Capitol wants to win?” I finish the last bite of my roasted vegetables. “I mean, all of this is contingent on our partners. They might be opposed to an alliance.”

“Of course,” Prim says quickly. “We’ll have to wait and see what they think.”

If I get the big blond from Two, like I’m aiming for, I feel like this alliance won’t have much of a chance. Still, I need a back-up plan, and Prim is my best choice. And I can already tell I’m really going to like her. “Naturally. But do you want to train with me, until the Pairing? I was thinking of checking out the trap-setting station after lunch.”

She smiles, and this one actually reaches her eyes. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

C

“Don’t tell me you’re actually considering her.”

I look for a minute longer at the two small girls at the fire-starting station, then turn to face Farley. She’s holding all the knives she’s pulled from the training dummy, looking at me and making the same face she’s been making for the past eleven months.

I retrieve the last of my own knives, ignoring her.

She sighs loudly. I grit my teeth, anticipating her to launch into her usual tirade about how it should be Adrian here with her, or how Adrian would never act so foolishly, or that Adrian would be better at this, or that the sun shines out of Adrian’s ass.

Well, she’s no Clove, while we’re making comparisons. Even I’m better at throwing knives than Farley is, and I’m nowhere near the whiz with them that Clove is.

Was, I remind myself. Than Clove was.

“You’d be the joke of our District, if you paired up with an outer-District girl like her,” Farley says, apparently not giving up.

I don’t react. “Your wrist is too stiff when you throw.”

She sighs again. “God, why couldn’t it have been Adrian?” She mutters, just loud enough for me to hear.

I want to tell her that Adrian can’t stand her, that despite being her training partner for six years and the person she thought she was going into the Games with, he was glad to see an end to their training. I know Adrian better than Farley does, better even than she thinks she does. He’ll be glad to see her body in a box.

“If she comes home without you, I’ll be so pissed,” he had told me in the Justice Building, just two days ago. “You’ve got to win, man, for my sake. Farley will be _unbearable_ if she comes home.”

I don’t tell her this. She’ll be dead in a month’s time, I tell myself. She’ll die for Adrian, for Dominic.

For me. For _my_ victory.

We return to the throwing boxes, and Farley produces another mediocre performance. I know how good she is with a sword, and she’s impressive in hand-to-hand as well, but this is just embarrassing.

We throw for fifteen more minutes, and she can’t seem to bear the silence, or my lack of reaction. “What does Brutus think?” She finally demands.

“Of what?”

“Of the slut from Ten,” she spits. “Of her throwing herself at you.”

Brutus doesn’t think of much at all. “He hasn’t said anything to me about it,” I lie.

Farley scoffs. “I’ll buy that when hell freezes over. Or does he actually think you’re on her level?”

I clench the fingers of my left hand into a fist, thinking how good it would feel to crush her windpipe, shut her up forever. I think of Dominic, of his rage. I tighten my grip, then relax. “You realise it’s a lottery, right? That none of us have any say over who our partners are? Or have you been so busy whining about Adrian you haven’t clued in?”

“We have a say in whether or not we _accept_ our partners,” she says haughtily. “We have a say in whether or not we debase ourselves with the rats from the outer Districts.”

I throw the last of my knives with exceptional vigour. It hits just off the bull’s-eye in the target’s chest. “If you snub your partner just because they’re not from One or Four then your head’s even further up your ass than I thought.”

Her knife hits the dummy’s navel. She hasn’t learned a thing from last year’s Games; her anger still makes her lose control, makes her weak.

“I don’t even know why I care,” she says, not sounding as casual as she wants to. “It’s not like you’ll _win,_ anyway.”

My fingers clench and relax, over and over. We retrieve our knives once more.

In the first few weeks of training together Farley set me off almost daily saying things like this. But the day I broke her nose I was given so many suicides to run that I threw up twice, and all my father said was that if I ever acted like such a shameful idiot again he’d never let me in the Games.

Farley can’t make me that angry anymore. That day, for the first time in my life, I saw my rage as a weakness, as something that made me reckless and unreliable, something that would have left me at the mercy of the girl from Twelve, mauled and bloody and dying in the dirt if Dominic hadn’t volunteered instead of me.

I ignore Farley, looking over my shoulder once more, looking at the girl from Ten. She’s small, like Katniss, with somewhat similar olive skin and dark hair. The resemblance ends there, but it’s enough to make me wonder.

Dominic underestimated Katniss Everdeen and he died brutally because of it. This girl might not be deadly with a bow and arrows, but for all I know she could have some other skill that could come in handy in the arena.

I watch her sit with the blonde Everdeen girl—Primrose, I think—talking and even smiling while they build smokeless fires.

She doesn’t look like much, but Farley can say what she wants; I’m not willing to risk my life by assuming that she can’t be useful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics from Coldplay's "Til Kingdom Come"


	7. Best Laid Plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the last day of training and the name of the game is not drowning, in water or in doubts.

_Goodbye Papa, please pray for me._

_I was the black sheep of the family;_

_You tried to teach me right from wrong,_

_Too much wine and too much song,_

_Wonder how I got along._

_Goodbye Papa, it's hard to die_

_When all the birds are singing in the sky._

_Now that the Spring is in the air,_

_Little children everywhere,_

_When you see them I'll be there._

* * *

 

“So how do you want to spend our last afternoon as free women?”

It’s noon on Sunday, and Prim and I have managed to cover almost all of the survival stations in the three days of training allotted to us before the Pairings.

Ever the picture of politeness, Prim finishes chewing her sandwich before answering. “Do you think we should give the trap station a second try?”

I think back to our afternoon two days ago. “I think Frieda would kick us out if we got within five metres of the trap station.”

She giggles. “Katniss was horrified when I told her how badly it went there.”

I can only imagine. “Yeah, well, we can’t be good at _everything_.” I grin, remembering the poor, exasperated instructor trying to teach us how to set a simple snare for most of Friday afternoon. At least we can laugh about it now—at the time we were both a little sure we were going to die in the arena if we couldn’t figure the snares out. Thanks to Frieda, of course, that drama queen. “We’ll have to find something else to be good at this afternoon,” I say. “I want to end on a high note.”

She stirs her soup. “Well we haven’t done swimming, camouflage, tree-climbing… or any of the weapon stations.” She bites her lip. “I’m not sure weapons would be a good idea, though.”

I watch her for a long moment. “Did your Mentors tell you to avoid the weapon stations?”

She looks up sharply. “Yes, actually.” She smiles a little. “And in no uncertain terms.”

Yesterday morning Prim told me that Katniss didn’t approve of us training together. I wasn’t surprised; the whole country knows Katniss is intense, ruthless, and fiercely protective, and to someone like that I’m sure just about anyone would seem like a possible threat to Prim’s survival. And while my interview didn’t make me seem like a bloodthirsty maniac, to Katniss’s cautious eye I’m sure my scheming was obvious, and I understand her concern for her sister’s sake.  

So I told Prim we didn’t have to be allies in the Games, then, but we could learn a lot from each other in training, and surely Katniss wouldn’t be opposed to that? She agreed, and here we are planning our last afternoon before we meet our partners.

“Mine told me the same. We don’t have time to get really good with any weapons, so there’s no sense wasting that time, although some self-defence training might not be a bad idea.” I scrape the bottom of my soup bowl with my toasted ham and cheese sandwich. Nye swings a shovel over his head. “Swimming sounds good. All the arenas have to have water of some kind, right?”

“That sounds good to me. Can you swim at all?”

I shake my head. “Not _really_. There’s a creek that runs through some of the fields near my house, but it isn’t deep enough to actually swim in. Do you have a place to swim in Twelve?”

“We used to. Katniss taught me how to stay afloat a bit when I was very young, but I haven’t gone swimming in… probably four years.” She finishes the last of her soup. “I think it would be a good way to spend the afternoon.”

I stand. “Perfect.” I place both hands on my stomach. “Now that I’m good and stuffed, let’s see how quickly I’ll sink to the bottom of the pool.”

There are two pools in the training complex, and the deeper one is occupied by two Tribute-Trainer pairs when we get there. Prim and I watch for a moment, then decide we are definitely in the wrong place when we see one of the instructors jump from a tower a good eighteen metres above the surface, showing the Tribute they’re working with how to enter the water without, I assume, killing yourself on impact.

Prim and I quickly make our way to the second pool, where a tall, bronzed instructor waits with his feet in the water, standing quickly as he sees us approaching.

“Are you two training together? I can get another instructor if you’d prefer separate sessions,” he says.

“Don’t worry about it,” I say with a smile. “Prim’s seen me embarrass myself in just about every way possible these last three days; there’s no need for me to start being shy about it now.”

His eyes widen when he looks to my blonde companion and realises that it is, in fact, Primrose Everdeen standing beside me, looking curiously at all of the colourful pieces of foam stacked beside the pool. She turns to offer a small smile, and the instructor looks absolutely starstruck. By now I’ve gotten used to this reaction, though it never ceases to amuse me.

“Right then,” he says quickly. “I’m Antony. What are you looking to learn today?”

“I’m Caerwyn.” I extend my hand, and he shakes it quickly before turning to Prim, whose handshake and introduction leave him gobsmacked. “I think we’re just hoping to learn how not to drown,” I add once he’s clear-eyed again.

“Right. Do you have any swimming ability?”

“I mean… I’ve been _in_ water before. Never water that went over my head, though.”

Antony turns to Prim. “What about you?”

“I learned to swim as a girl, but I haven’t in years.”

Antony considers this for a moment. “We’ll start with floating then.”

He directs us to the change rooms, where we find lockers already with our names on them stocked with towels, soap, and shiny underwear.

I pull out the wackiest bra in the known world, white with golden swirls. “Umm…”

Prim holds up something similar, only hers is baby blue with silver stars. “Are we supposed to wear these?”

We put them on, with their matching underwear, and stand there looking in the mirror for a few minutes. I’ve never been shy about nudity, but something about these pieces makes me feel like they’re designed to make you feel more naked than you really are.

Prim tugs at the sides of her top. “Well, they seem to fit very well.”

“I’m almost alarmed at how well they already know our sizes,” I agree, looking from the side to see how the outfit doesn’t move a smidge out of place no matter what I do, sticking to me like it’s a part of my skin. “I’m just hoping this isn’t a subtle clue that these will be our outfits for the arena.”

Prim laughs nervously. “That would be awful.”

“Although, that would probably mean the arena is warm,” I point out, tying a towel around my waist. “Alright, I guess we better not keep Antony waiting.”

I half expect our instructor to raise his eyebrows at our strange outfits, or even burst out laughing and tell us to put real clothes on, but he doesn’t so much as bat a single eyelash. He’s already standing in the pool, the water reaching his ribs—for Prim and I it will cover our chests.

“Right. Grab a board and hop in,” Antony says, gesturing to the stacks of foam. “They’ll help you float until you can manage on your own.”

Prim and I obey. “Grab the blue one,” I tell her, adopting my best Capitol accent. “That yellow one clashes _terribly_ with your bathing costume!”

“You sound like my Escort,” she says with a smile, reaching for the blue board.

“ _My_ Escort would be proud to hear you say so.”

Antony quickly realises we aren’t completely unused to the water, so, mercifully, after only a few minutes of practicing putting our faces in the water we move on to more advanced techniques.

He teaches us how to float on our backs, and then our stomachs, and then shows us how to lie on the small foam boards and we practice kicking around the pool. It’s actually pretty fun.

We learn what he calls the breast stroke, and after about an hour and a half we’re comfortable enough in the water that Prim and I feel like if the arena floods, we won’t die immediately.

“I wish I could bring one of these boards with me in the arena,” Prim says as we hang onto the pool’s edge after swimming two laps without the aid of the floatation device.

“You and me both,” I reply, remembering Annie Cresta and the year she watched her fellow Tributes drown.

Next, Antony teaches us how to tread water, which takes significantly more time and effort than learning breaststroke. It’s tiring work, and the last three days haven’t exactly been relaxing, so we practice for a only two minutes at a time, then rest for a minute holding on to the pool wall, a cycle we maintain for close to twenty minutes, by which time my legs feel like jelly.

Antony suggests we take a break at two-thirty, which is much appreciated. Prim and I sit on the edge of the pool, sipping from bottles of water and admiring our pruney fingers and toes.

“It’s harder than I expected,” Prim comments. “But while I don’t quite feel like I could survive in District Four, I don’t think I’m in much danger of drowning.”

“Not drowning is the goal,” I agree. “Oi my legs are sore, though.” I massage my quads, then stand and stretch. “It’s harder than I thought it would be, too. Swimming doesn’t look like much, but I can’t wait to see how sore I’ll be tomorrow.” I sit back down, continuing to stretch from a seated position. “I wonder if there’s a way for us to practice swimming with a current; if there’s a river in the arena it might be good to be familiar with the water pushing back.”

Prim hums thoughtfully. “That would be a good thing to try next.”

Antony has other ideas. He comes back to the pool after our short break dressed in sturdy pants, boots, a t-shirt and jacket. He carries a duffle bag in each hand, tossing them to the tile in front of us. “Put those on; you’ll want practise swimming fully clothed, since you won’t be wearing bikinis in the arena.”

“Oh thank goodness,” I say under my breath. Prim raises a hand to cover her smile.

We find similar outfits to his own in the duffle bags, and in a minute we’ve put them on over our suits. Antony hands us each a bracelet. “In case you think you’re _really_ going to drown. It’s an electromagnet; if you press that big blue button on the side, the bracelet will propel you upward, and I’ll be there with a buoy to help you.

“What we’re going to do now is move to the deeper end of the pool, and you’re going to practice trying to stay afloat while clothed. These were the outfits from last year’s Games, and they’re pretty typical arena costumes.” He jumps into the pool, quickly beginning to tread water. “Obviously the clothes are going to weigh you down, the shoes especially. Problem is, you don’t want to just kick your shoes off and spend the rest of the Games barefoot, so you need to know what to do instead. If you’re actually going to drown though, take the shoes off. That’s a no-brainer.

“What you _can_ do before that is take the neck of your shirt,” he lifts his up to his chin, “pull it close, so it’s touching your head all the way around. Then blow air into it.” He lifts the shirt over his mouth, holding the excess and twisting it so it’s sealed around his head, and starts breathing into the shirt. Sure enough, it fills like a balloon and he’s able to slip the neck back down to his chin, now barely treading water and still staying afloat. “Jump in and try it.”

 The clothes don’t weigh much—not enough to make much of a difference on land—but in the water they feel incredibly heavy, and I soon learn that treading water fully clothed is _much_ more difficult than Antony made it look. I know it will be easier once my shirt is blown up, but I can’t see how I’ll be able to do that when I’m already gasping for air.

I flounder, sinking under the surface a few times before lurching back up, but I’m determined not to use the bracelet unless I’m actually about to drown. The panic of not feeling the smooth floor of the pool beneath my toes is hard to overcome, as is the fear that if I go under I won’t be able to propel myself up again. It wasn’t nearly this hard when I was just using my body weight, and several times Antony reminds us to be calm and to breathe evenly, because if we panic we might never catch our breaths. If that happens, he informs us cheerily, we’re goners.

He’s a good teacher, and his work with us from earlier pays off. In less than a minute I’ve calmed down enough, and I’ve figured out that by half floating on my back and kicking hard with my legs I’m able to free my arms to help blow air into my shirt. In about three minutes, Prim and I are bobbing along like large toys, only needing to kick our feet half as much as normal to avoid sinking and pushing the air out of our shirts.

I look over at her, smiling excitedly. “I like this much better.”

Prim nods, causing her whole body to bounce a little to the left. “Me too!”

By the end of the afternoon Antony has taught us how to tread water and we even get a bit of practice swimming against a current. The latter is  the hardest skill of all, as well as the most exhausting. We both have to use our bracelets during that part of the lesson.

However, despite sore limbs and a number of other difficulties, neither of us drown. In other words, the afternoon is an unqualified success.

“I think I’m going to sleep better tonight than I ever have,” I tell her once we’re back in the changerooms, showering before we go back to our apartments. “My entire body is sore. Muscles I didn’t even know I had are _screaming_ at me.”

“I didn’t expect it to be so hard,” Prim agrees. “My legs feel like they might collapse any minute, and I can’t wait to lie down.” I hear the water turn off in her stall, and a moment later she leaves the showers wrapped in a towel with another wrapping up her hair.

I finish washing my hair, sniffing it to confirm it no longer smells like the pool chemicals. “Me too. And I can’t wait to eat; I’m _so_ hungry.”

“Effie told me we’ll have prime rib tonight. I’ve only ever had it once, and it was so good, I’ve been looking forward to it all day,” Prim says, her voice dreamy.

My mouth waters just thinking about it. “That sounds so good. I hope we’re having the same. I’ll have to put in a request for tomorrow night if we’re not.”

“You’ve probably had it a lot, living in District Ten though, right?”

I turn off the water, squeezing the excess from my hair. “No; it’s such an expensive cut, even for us beef farmers. We can’t afford to keep the best for ourselves.” I step out of the shower, taking my two towels from the heated towel rack. “But I _know_ it’s good. With roasted carrots and potatoes…” I shudder just thinking about it. “Now I don’t want to eat anything else, and I’m so hungry I feel like I could eat enough to feed twelve people.”

We dress slowly, with many groans (on my part) but we still finish with almost ten minutes to spare before Training is officially over.

“Are you nervous about the Pairing tomorrow?” I ask her as we walk through the pool area back to the main complex.

She shakes her head. “Not really. Anyone I could be paired with will do me good. I’m a little nervous about the interviews later, but not about who my partner will be.”

“Really?” I’m genuinely surprised to hear this. “Your interview on Thursday was so good, and you seemed so relaxed… were you nervous for it, too?”

Prim looks at me like I’m crazy. “Yes! Of course… I was going to be talking in front of the entire country! Weren’t you nervous for yours?”

“No, not really!”

“And you’re not nervous about tomorrow at all either?”

I haven’t really thought about it. Am I worried about it? I feel like I’ve just been so focused on doing everything I can to spend much time fretting about what will happen if it goes wrong. “I suppose I’m worried that I’ll get a partner who won’t want to work with me, or who will get himself killed quickly, or who will fall asleep when it’s his turn to keep watch at night.” _Or who won’t go along with my strategy._

She thinks about this. “I see what you mean, but isn’t having a partner who falls asleep better than not having one at all? Isn’t it good to just have _anyone_ on your side?”

“I suppose,” I say, though I’m not sure I agree. “But we’ll all have somebody, so having just anyone isn’t really an advantage, yeah?”

She nods, deep in thought for a moment. “So you really want to be paired with the boy from District Two?”

I give her a look from the corner of my eye. “What _ever_ would give you that idea?”

Prim has clearly gotten used to my sense of humour, because she responds with a dry look of her own that makes me feel… oddly proud. “Lucky guess.”

That strange feeling lingers as we approach the main doors. “Any of the Careers would be good. I just really want someone who knows what they’re doing; I’ve read a lot of books and I have a lot of ideas, but there’s something to be said for their years of experience.”

We’re the first Tributes back, but since we’re not supposed to leave until five o’clock precisely we wait by the doors as the others start to join us.

“I’m not sure I could convince any of the Careers to work with me,” Prim says.

I turn to her. “Are you nuts? Prim, you’d be an asset for any of them! Even if he doesn’t have the good sense God gave a gnat, he’d be able to see that you’re a valuable partner to have.”

She blushes, laughing a little. “I didn’t realise you felt so strongly about my prospects.”

I bite my tongue, wanting simultaneously to laugh and cry. “I want you to do well, honestly,” I tell her, my voice low. “That might sound stupid, because… well, it _is_ the Hunger Games, but you truly deserve it.” I hate the reminder, even as I say it, that we are on opposing sides.

We’re quiet for another moment, and I debate telling her that I’m glad to have gotten to train with her. But I don’t want to make this harder than it is, and I’ve already made it pretty damn hard by befriending her in the first place.

I look over at Prim, feeling even more tired than I was a moment ago.

I’m not a Career; I’m not ruthless and hard, I’m not a natural killer, and apparently I’m not very good at sticking to my own plans. I need to do better, from here on out, at being strong enough. I need to win these Games, and that means not making any friends with other Tributes who are, effectively, my enemies. Even if they are kind, and sweet, and smart, and even if we might actually be friends if things were different.

I know Fra would say I’m having a hard time because I’m a good person, or something along those lines, but that doesn’t help me in this moment of frustration. What’s the use in being a good person if you’re dead?

“Caer?”

Prim’s voice snaps me out of my little reverie. “Yeah?”

“I know… we probably won’t get to be allies in the arena, but thanks for offering to ally with me. And thanks for training with me too; I know I learned a lot more because I wasn’t alone.”

I smile, ignoring my promise to myself from mere moments ago. “No problem! I’m glad we got to train together, too.”

We _do_ have prime rib for dinner.

It’s amazing. It’s more delicious than anything I could possibly have dreamt of. There’s spinach and mushroom stuffing, carrots, brussel sprouts, and parsnips all roasted in garlic and honey, truffle mashed potatoes, and dinner rolls that practically melt in your mouth.

I could weep, it’s so beautiful.

Rhodendra’s left eyebrow remains raised throughout much of dinner, pretending not to watch me inhale my food like some kind of uncivilized barbarian.

“You certainly seem hungry, this evening,” she observes with almost saccharine pleasantness. “Did they forget to feed you lunch at Training today?”

Clyse chortles.

I smile up at her, sweet as can be. “Oh no, of course lunch was delicious! I spent the entire afternoon swimming, that’s all, and it’s tiring work. I really worked up an appetite.” I take a sip of my wine. Oh, did I mention all the red wine? This meal is nothing short of a miracle.

I’m full by the time the Avoxes bring out dessert in the form of several pies and tarts, but they look and smell so good that I can’t help myself, and that’s how I find myself lying on the couch in the sitting room thirty minutes later, curled into the fetal position and whimpering softly.

Fra looks at me over the spine of his book. “Self-control failed you once again?”

“What self-control?” I moan. “I’m never going to eat again. I feel so full I could explode.” I clutch my stomach. “If you poked me with anything sharp, I think gravy would come out.” Still no response. “My entire body is in revolt, trying to kill me.”

He hums. “I could tell you I’ll remind you of this experience next time you decide to cut yourself a _third_ piece of pie, but gaining a bit of weight before the arena will be good for you.”

I roll over onto my back. “Not if Vo’s already made my dress for tomorrow and I can’t fit into it.”

He chuckles. “I don’t think that will be a problem.” Finally, he sets the book down on his lap, finger marking the page. “How has the book on edible herbs been coming?”

It’s some of the driest reading of my entire life, and I have read _a lot_ of books. “It’s progressing to a satisfactory degree,” I reply. It might be crucial to my survival, that’s the only reason I’ve got only eighty pages left in the 267-page tome. I’m as through with it as I am with this dinner, but neither of them seem to be through with me.

Fra resumes his reading. I squint to read the title: _A Statistical Account of Economy and Demography in District Four._

I return my gaze to the ceiling. I suppose there _are_ more boring books I could be assigned.

“And how was training today? You said you went swimming this afternoon, did it go well?”

“Yeah. Prim and I spent the morning at the extreme-temperature survival station, which was very informative, and the lady there even taught us how to start a fire with nothing but sticks. I mean, we didn’t actually get to make a fire that way, but we learned the proper techniques. Lorra said it can take hours to actually get a fire going, so it isn’t the best use of our time when we only have a few days to learn all we can.”

“So you’ve gotten to all the survival stations you wanted to already?”

I nod. “Basically. I mean, there’s tree climbing and camouflage, but I know how to climb and even Peeta Mellark’s performance last year isn’t enough to convince me camouflage is actually that a valuable skill in the arena.” I unbutton the top of my pants, sighing happily as it releases some of the pressure on my stomach. “And most importantly, now I probably won’t drown in the arena. We learned quite a bit in the pools this afternoon.”

“It _is_ good to avoid drowning,” Fra says sagely. “And you still haven’t had any interaction with any of the Careers?”

“No, none at all.” But I _have_ been intentional in that area, always making sure I know where they are and that I’m smiling a little at all times (or at least I’ve been trying not to make any embarrassing faces), so that hopefully I stand out from all the other gloomy, unfriendly faces. I don’t know how much a Career cares about my cheery attitude, but it’s the best I can do. “How have things gone on your end?”

He puts down the book once more, this time inserting a bookmark and placing it on the coffee table. “It’s been going well. Many prospective sponsors seem intrigued by you; many of the smarter ones recognize a schemer when they see one, and they know what role intelligence can play in the arena. Of course, I try to remind them all of the brilliant Victors we’ve seen in the past, be it Beetee from Three or even Haymitch from Twelve.” He pushes his glasses up on his nose. “It all seems to be paying off, as I had two prospective sponsors come by today who were recommended by friends of theirs with whom I spoke on Friday.”

This is great news. Despite seeming like a dusty old bookworm much of the time, Fra can be truly charming when he chooses to be, and is disarmingly good at convincing people of just about anything. His job talking me up to sponsors is extremely important, and there truly is no one I’d rather have out there doing it.

Gratitude swells in my chest as I think about how hard he’s working to keep me alive. “Thank you so much, Fra, I’m really glad you’ve been so successful. Have any of them said anything about the Pairing?”

He gives a dry laugh. “Oh, yes. Many of them have wondered if there’s something between you and the boy from Two, and I’ve certainly done my best to be coy and suggest that there might be, but that I can’t be sure.” He leans in, resting his hands on his knees. “I had one very interesting conversation, though, with a man who told me that he had previously spoken to Enobaria—the female Mentor from Two—and she had practically confirmed a relationship to him.”

I sit up, ignoring the way my stomach lurches and threatens to eject its contents onto the carpet. “Really? What did you say to that?”

“Well, I told him that I’ve been out here looking for sponsors the whole time and haven’t actually observed any part of the Training, and that you’re surprisingly reserved when it comes to the Pairing, so I don’t have much to report. I told him you usually just say that you have certain hopes, but that you’re waiting to find out.” He raises his hands. “I wasn’t sure what else to say, since I was so surprised to hear it, and couldn’t be sure he wasn’t testing me.”

“What do you think it means?” I ask, excited by the possibility that my plan might be working.

Fra shrugs, shaking his head. “I’m not sure. Enobaria isn’t Cato’s Mentor, so it could be her trying to sabotage _his_ prospects in favour of Farley’s. Though…” he trails off, thinking for a moment, then shrugs. “Or the man could have been lying, trying to see if I would lie back to him. Or, maybe—and this seems unlikely, so I don’t want to get your hopes up—but maybe District Two have finally realised that you can’t win the Games by sheer brute force, and they recognise the value of having someone intelligent as a partner.”

I snort. “That does seem unlikely; it would have taken a lot of District Two’s limited brainpower to achieve _that_ epiphany.”

Fra smiles. “Be that as it may, it _is_ possible. And regardless of whether or not Enobaria is telling the truth, if she’s really spreading the message that there is the possibility of a relationship between you two then she’s putting the idea in the Capitol’s head, and that can only help you get Cato as a partner.” He takes a deep breath. “Which, hopefully, is what’s best for you.”

I ignore the last part of his thought. “How much do you think this will all influence voters, though?” I ask, expressing a doubt that’s been floating around in my head for a couple of days now. “I mean, even with my interview, you encouraging it, and now Enobaria maybe talking about it too, the voters have never seen us interact. Will they really care about the little hints?” The more I think about it, the more I see problems with the set-up of this whole Quell. There are so many things I’d do differently, to fix problems like this.

“There’s nothing else for them to base their votes on, really, but the power of suggestion. The best we can do is encourage them in the right direction.”

I collapse back onto the couch. “I hate how much of this is out of my hands. I wish there was something more I could do to help this process.” I massage my swollen belly, feeling like a pregnant woman. Pregnant with half a pie. “I feel helpless and I hate it.”

“I promise you Caer, I’m doing everything I can. You’ve done well so far with making a connection between you and him in the first place, now all you have to do is figure out what you’ll do tomorrow afternoon when we find out what’s become of all this scheming. And, of course,” he adds, picking up his own book, “keep reading about which plants won’t kill you.”

I look up at him. “There’s no rest for the wicked, then, is there?”

He shakes his head. “I’m afraid not. Not in the Hunger Games.” He taps his fingers on his knee. “Not after them, either.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics from "Seasons in the Sun" which has so many versions, but I have to put in a good word for the one by Westlife because it's fantastic.


	8. Occasionally Come to Fruition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's finally the Pairing Ceremony and Caerwyn is about to figure out if all her scheming has paid off, or rather, she's about to figure out just what she may have gotten herself into...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone is interested, I've decided to make the Pinterest boards for this story public; I've been posting stuff there for my own brainstorming and visualizing purposes for a while now, but I thought it might be something any readers might be interested in! I'm on Pinterest as Mav L, and you'll find boards there for the fic as well as for Caer and Cato. And for those of you who like to see pictures to go alongside my descriptions (i.e. if you want to SEE Caer's dresses) then you'll find them there!  
> Additionally, if you want to send me asks in between the sometimes cruelly-long breaks between chapters, you can find me on Tumblr at frick6101719 ("On to R, Once More")

_Ripe for the feast, eyes on the kill,_

_Hungry, very hungry for the rabbit blood to spill._

_Beady little eyes are burning holes in my back,_

_Everyone's a voyeur here, but no one will react._

_When the world is over and the robot army comes,_

_Fighting down the mountain with their supersonic guns,_

_I'll be free._

_Floating on a sunbeam, lost at sea._

_You can have my body but you can't have me._

* * *

To say Jinno is unimpressed with me would be a gross understatement.

I shift my weight from one bare foot to the other on the cool tile floor of the prep room, pretending I don’t notice her aggressively staring. Hollonaos and Awlee are too shocked to speak, or maybe too afraid, and stand to the side wringing their hands.

Jinno reaches out and touches my distended stomach, still bloated from last night’s overindulgence. Her face remains still, but her lips are turned down as much as they are able, and there is absolute murder in her eyes.

“We had prime rib for dinner,” I offer.

Jinno’s eyes flick to mine for a bare second, then she jerks her head in Awlee’s direction, and the other woman scurries out of the room without a word, practically tripping over her feet in her haste.

Hollonaos claps his hands together nervously. “Well, we had better get started… Vo will be here with her dress soon and we can’t just be standing around when she arrives.” His smile looks more like a grimace, and he flinches when Jinno looks his way.

She straightens, adjusting the hem of her white coat. “Yes, and we have _so_ _much_ to do.”

And thus the blitz begins.

Awlee returns with a suspicious little glass of clear, greenish-blue liquid and a water bottle and I am ordered to drink them both, promptly. With my stomach full to bursting with fluids, one of which may be poisonous (I trust Awlee, but as for Jinno I’m not so sure) I am stripped naked and sent to the shower. It’s been pre-programmed to leave my hair shiny and almost sticky from some sort of product sprayed on after the last rinse and I leave the cubicle in cloud of vanilla-and-amber-scented steam, curious to know what Vo has planned for me this time, and hoping she won’t leave me subject to Jinno’s wrath for long.

Hollonaos guides me to a strange-looking chair to sit in while he does my hair. I’m half kneeling, half sitting, and he explains that this will allow Awlee to move around and do my body makeup while he and Jinno do my hair and face. The room we have to prepare for the Pairing is much smaller than the warehouse-sized chambers of the Remake Centre, so the team has to make the most of the space they have.

“You’ll have _quite_ a lot of body makeup on this time,” Hollonaos says with a chuckle, twirling my hair around a rod in his hand. “Awlee will need all the time she can get!”

This further piques my curiosity, but the team is tight-lipped about what Vo has planned for me to wear, no matter how much I try to wheedle it out of them. And I’ve always considered myself something of an expert wheedle-er.

They’re much more descriptive about the hair and makeup looks, though I’m still being prepared facing away from the mirrors. Hollonaos explains every detail of his process, from setting my hair in medium-sized curls, to spraying and brushing those curls out into “big, sexy waves,” to carefully braiding in strands of bright silver thread that will add sparkle and a little something extra to the look. He then pulls my hair back from my face with big, jeweled hair clips, tucking my fringe away in a sleek middle part and teasing my hair up at the crown before allowing it to fall back between my shoulder blades. I can hardly wait to see it once he’s finished, but between Awlee dusting a metallic powder carefully across my thighs and Jinno holding my chin so tightly I might swallow my tongue there’s no way I can turn to the mirrors on the wall to take a peek.

By the time Vo arrives, we’ve been at it two hours and I’ve had to take no less than five pee breaks. Whatever that stuff they gave me to drink has worked wonders; my belly is now back to its normal, soft but mostly-flat shape, and I don’t feel bloated at all. Plus all the water they’ve been making me drink has me feeling very well-hydrated, even though it seems unlikely much has stayed _in_ my body.

Jinno is painting my eyes, so I have to look sidelong across the room to see a bright periwinkle gown draped across her arms. But even from here I can see Vo grinning like the cat that got the canary.

“Oooh, Caerwyn I think you’re really going to like this one!” Awlee squeals.

Jinno finishes gluing on lashes that could swat down a bird and I’m finally allowed to take a look. Vo holds up the dress by the white velvet hanger, practically bursting with excitement.

I look at the dress sparkling in her hands, and before I can even form a thought of my own I hear my mother’s voice pipe up from somewhere in the back of my mind demanding to know “where’s the rest of it?”

I know that if Mom were here that’s exactly what she’d say, whether Vo is one of the best stylists in the country or not. And she wouldn’t be wrong, exactly.

Once it’s on I get a better idea of just how right Hollonaos was about the body makeup; there is a _lot_ of skin exposed. A delicate latticework of silver thread, sapphires, and crystals makes up the primary layer of the “skirt”, the flower-like clusters of gems growing closer together over my midsection providing _just_ enough coverage to keep me from being fully on display. Over this jeweled netting lies a few scant layers of nearly transparent fabric in beautiful pastel shades of violet-blue. The material is so thin and light it seems like it might float away were it not for the slim, jewel-encrusted belt cinching it at my waist.

The same pattern of gems continues up from the skirt along the whisper-thin, flesh-coloured material of the bodice, the flowers tightly-knit around my breasts and reaching to my neck to form the high-collar of the gown.

The sheer number of jewels is staggering, and between them and the silver streaking throughout, the gown seems to be refracting all the light in the room, and I sparkle like a mythical creature every time I move.

“What do you think?” Vo asks, as Jinno helps me into a pair of lilac-coloured platforms.

I turn to the mirror, and my reply dies on my tongue. Yes, the dress leaves precious little to the imagination, and yes it’s weird that all of my friends and family will see me wearing it on TV, but all of this seems to fade into the background of my mind. It’s simply the most beautiful gown I’ve ever seen. Mesmeric sparkling aside: the gorgeous colour—somewhere between lavender and baby blue, I still can’t decide—makes the silver accents shine while keeping the look from being too sultry.

And it’s all tied together by my hair and makeup; Hollonaos’s work with my hair has left it sleek but voluminous and oh-so-shiny, and Jinno’s expert hand has kept my makeup fresh and flirty with glowing cheeks, dusty rose lips and smoked-out, charcoal eyeshadow. The whole look girly, but sexy, walking that line even better than I could have dreamed.

“Vo… I don’t even know what to say,” I touch my hair, the skirt, those crazy eyelashes, trying not to muss anything while also making sure it’s real. “I look incredible.” It’s not even boastful to say so; all I did was stay still, and my team turned me into a goddess. It’s just a shame that I’ll be wearing it for such a brief event.

Vo smiles, and Awlee swipes a tear away for which Hollonaos immediately starts teasing her.

Even Jinno seems pleased. “He won’t know what hit him,” she says quietly, her poison-green eyes glowing.

Right. I almost forgot what all this is for. My stomach gives a nervous gurgle as I remember that such a crucial piece of my strategy will be determined tonight, and only when the strange bubbling feeling doesn’t go away after a few seconds do I realise I have to pee again.

“So the Pairing begins in thirty minutes,” Vo says, once we’re seated back out in the prep room. “How do you feel?”

This time my answer comes quickly. “Much better now that I’ve got this on!” I say, lifting a handful of the whimsical skirt. “I know I’ve said it about a thousand times in the last ten minutes, but I’m so happy with it. You’ve all done such a great job.”

Awlee blushes, and Hollonaos bows.

Vo swirls the wine in her glass. “You have been a pleasure to work with, Caerwyn. It is a joy to design for you.” She pokes my stomach. “You nearly gave us a real challenge this morning too, hm?”

I laugh. “I’ve sworn never to eat so much again, so don’t worry; we should have smooth sailing from here.”

Vo sighs. “Unfortunately, that is not true. Once you are paired, we will be working with your partner’s team to come up with your costumes for the parade and final interviews, which will be a much _bigger_ challenge; many of the other stylists are snobby and have _terrible_ taste.”

“The one from District Two isn’t too bad,” Hollonaos adds with a conspiratorial wink.

“Yes,” Vo muses, a smile playing at the corners of her lips, “he’s not so bad.” She gives me a sidelong glance. “We want you to do well, of course. But just know we will be cheering for you to catch that boy for our own sakes, as well.”

I place my hand over my heart. “I’m just glad I earned your votes.”

“Oh, we’re not allowed to vote,” Awlee pipes up. “But I got my mom and my sisters and practically everyone I know vote for you two, so it’s almost like voting!”

I’m truly touched by this, and it must show because Awlee blushes again, and Hollonaos laughs. “Thank you so much, Awlee,” I say, once she looks up and meets my eye. “Really; that’s incredibly kind of you.”

Hollonaos wraps his arm around her shoulders, giving her a fond squeeze. I still can’t tell if their relationship is flirtatious or more of a brother-sister thing. “We all spread the word to our family and friends,” he tells me. “Don’t you worry about this afternoon; we’re taking care of you.” It’s maybe the first thing I’ve heard him say that sounds serious, and I can’t believe my good luck to get a team as wonderful as the one I have.

Really, this is better news than I could have dreamed. While I don’t know what my team’s lives are like outside of the Games, I imagine they are at least moderately popular in Capitol social circles, and their voices must hold sway with those close to them, at least. If they’ve been drumming up votes it’s possible things just might go my way.

The Pairing is scheduled for one o’clock—a bit of a strange hour, since most of the other pre-Games events happen in the evening—to give our stylists as much time as possible to prepare our costumes for the parade tomorrow night. More importantly it will give me an afternoon to get to know my new partner, to get an idea of what to expect from him, and to convince him to work with me, if needed.

The prep rooms are all just behind the auditorium where the Pairings will take place, so when Rhodendra arrives to escort me to the stage it’s only a short walk down a poorly-lit corridor to a staircase that leads to the stage. She gives me a quick rundown of how the event will progress, wishes me luck, and drops me off in a sitting room backstage where we girls will all wait until we’re called out.  

Most of the girls are already there when I arrive, and within a few minutes all twelve of us are sitting quietly on plush couches and chairs, subtly checking the clock every once in a while to see if time really is moving backwards or if that’s just the tension.

I spot Prim across the room and give her a smile which she returns brightly. Of course, she looks better than all of us, and we all know it. Sorrell from Four, by the looks of it, is positively furious to be outshone, and is pouting with her arms crossed a few seats away.

I’m trying not to be similarly intimidated, but District Twelve’s stylists proved themselves to be a cut above the rest last year, with no signs of slowing down to let the others catch up. Prim’s interview look was more subdued, but this time Cinna has pulled out all the stops with a pale silver-blue gown with long sleeves and a high collar that gives Prim—even when she’s just sitting there inspecting her nails—the look of a goddess engulfed in a snowstorm. I have no idea how it’s even possible, but the fabric seems to be creating its own wind and is constantly moving, just like Katniss’s flames did. The rest of us are wearing clothes (to varying degrees), but Prim is dressed in pure magic.

Her blonde hair is pulled up in a hopelessly complex pile of braids, twists, pins, and clips, and her cornflower-blue eyes pop against a pale face with silver eyeshadow and pink, wind-bitten cheeks and lips. It doesn’t take a genius to see what Cinna has done with her look; she’s still a fresh-faced thirteen-year-old, and Panem’s favourite, of course, but she’s in the middle of a storm, cold, and thriving.

I catch her eye once more and mouth _you look amazing_ across the room. Her face softens, and she smiles and replies _so do you._

A harried-looking stagehand appears in the door, tablet in hand and hair sticking up on one side. “Okay, ladies, if you could all just follow me.” He scurries back out the door, the twelve of us barely a step behind.

We get to the stage and I see it’s just how Rhodendra explained: the girls will be standing in one row on a bridge of sorts over the stage, and the boys will be standing underneath. There are twelve big glass balls like the ones used in the Reaping to one side of the stage, one for each boy. Caesar will draw one slip of paper from each bowl starting with District One’s, and whatever girl is selected will leave the stage with her partner, and Caesar will move on until none of us are left. It will be very quick, taking less than half an hour until it’s all finished, and afterwards Caesar will conduct interviews with some “Games Experts” (usually ex-Gamemakers and statisticians, and of course Claudius Templesmith) to help people make informed betting decisions, moving forward. Of course, when our final scores come out in a few more days, they’ll do the same thing all over again, hypothesizing and critiquing and pretending to have any idea how the Games will play out.

The whole set up is a little uncomfortably reminiscent of a slave auction, but I brush this thought aside as the lights go dark and the curtain pulls back. The curtain is soundproof, and as it retreats the noise from what surely must be the entire Capitol screaming like bloody idiots hits me like a ton of bricks.

“Holy shit,” Nadia, from Eleven, exclaims to my left.

_My thoughts exactly._

A spotlight shines on the curtain where Caesar is about to make his grand entrance, and I feel my stomach flutter. A loud voice announces the Pairing Ceremony and its host, and Caesar bursts onto the stage in his signature blue suit to a surge of applause that is _unfathomably_ loud.

“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen!” He begins, walking from one side of the stage to the other, his suit shimmering in the spotlight which follows his movement. The audience can’t see us yet, but I’m sure they will find a new level of loud once they can.

“How are we all doing tonight? Is everyone as excited as I am for this first-and-only-ever Pairing Ceremony?” Screaming, clapping, etc., etc. “Well I hope you’ve all cast your votes for your favourites, because as of,” he makes a show of checking his watch, “fourteen and a half minutes ago, voting closed and the final numbers were run. Of course, in true Hunger Games fashion, we like to leave a little up to chance!” He gestures at the glass bowls. “Not a single person, not even me, knows how this evening is going to go, so it is with all sincerity that I say _may the odds be ever in our favour!”_

The stage lights come on, and I’m practically blown away by the sound of them all cheering for us. I remember to smile out at the crowd, reminding myself that I’m only _sort of_ a piece of human chattel and that these people are really my _friends_. They’re the ones who will save my life, after all. What’s not to like about that?

Caesar spends a bit more time teasing the crowd before finally moving on to the first bowl, calling for Glint to step forward and wait to meet his lady. Caesar fishes around in the bowl for a few tantalizing seconds as the audience holds its breath. All of us girls do our best to stay calm, but I’m sure we’re all anxious to see who will be the first to meet her partner.

“District Three’s Elinnor Watts!”

The lights on the bridge go dim, all except for a spotlight on the tall, gangly girl far to my right. I can see her on the screen hanging over the audience, and she looks startled, then remembers to smile. I remember her interview, not that it was particularly noteworthy; she’s fourteen and fairly awkward—probably brilliant—but her social skills are somewhat lacking. Plus, she’s the one who fainted on-stage at the Reaping, which is never a good look. She won’t likely do Glint much good, though he does a good job of acting like he’s delighted with his partner.

The lights go dark, and I hear the faint shuffling of Elinnor and Glint leaving the stage before the remaining twenty-two spotlights return, shining on those of us who have yet to be paired.

“Now on to our next lucky gentleman of the evening, District Two’s Cato Emery!”

The spotlights on the other ten boys go dark, and the cameras focus in on the giant blond as he smooths a hand down the breast of his steel-coloured three-piece. The bright white lights give him an unnatural paleness, and his blue eyes stand out on his face like two chips of ice. But his expression remains blank, showing no emotion whatsoever.  

I take a deep breath. This could be it.

Caesar rummages around in the ball before gingerly plucking out a single piece of paper.

“District Ten’s Caerwyn Dahl!”

A tightness between my shoulder blades releases, and I don’t have to feign the excitement that takes over my face when the spotlight lands on me. I look down at my new partner, who returns my bright smile with a simple nod of his head.

It worked.

The lights go dark, and I feel a cool hand touch my arm. “Follow me.” It’s Rhodendra.

I feel my breaths coming warm and fast, and my hands shake a little. It worked. It worked. I got a Career; I’m one step closer to winning the Games. I’m one step closer to going home, and I almost have to stop Rhodendra and catch my breath in my elation.

My Escort leads me along the bridge and offstage, down a set of stairs and through two hallways until we’ve reached the shuttle station.

Cato waits there with a man I distantly recognize as Two’s Escort. The Capitolite extends his hand, smiling warmly. “Caerwyn, dear, it’s a pleasure to meet you. My name is Yvain; I’m the Escort for District Two. You’ll be seeing more of me I’m sure, now that you’ve joined our team. Welcome; we’re so happy to have you.”

He shakes my hand with both of his, and I smile back easily. I note absently the irony that District Two—home of decades’ worth of snarling, scowling Tributes—has such a genial Escort. “Thank you; it’s great to meet you too, Yvain.”

He explains that he’d love to stay and get to know “his newest friend” but he has to go make sure someone’s there to lead Farley away when she’s selected, so he quickly heads down the hallway Rhodendra and I just exited, leaving the three of us.

“Alright,” my Escort says, turning to face us. “The shuttle will take you two back to the Training Centre, where you will have the rest of the afternoon to yourselves. Best hop-to quickly; the next pair of Tributes will be here any moment.”

We hear distant applause, as if in confirmation.

“Do you know of anywhere we could go to… talk?” I ask her, looking at Cato. “I mean if we have all afternoon we might as well figure out our plan from here.”

Rhodendra thinks for a moment, tapping her foot. “Well, you could try the roof, I suppose. It’s usually accessible, and I think there may even be little gardens up there.”

I thank her, and she sees Cato and me off on the shuttle just as the next pair are coming into the room.

The doors close behind us, and the shuttle starts moving almost immediately. I take a seat on one side of the car, he on the other.

“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” He asks as he sits down.

His tone gives me nothing with which to guess how he feels about this—he could be angry, he could be impressed, he could not care either way—and his expression, as usual, doesn’t help either. Honesty seems to be the only viable route on my part. “Yes,” I say. “Basically.”

“How did you know it would work?”

I shrug. “I didn’t _know_ , but I felt it was worth a shot. I didn’t want to get stuck with dead weight, so I did what I could to avoid that.”

He tilts his head. “And _you_ won’t be dead weight?”

“Nope. I’m willing to do whatever it takes to win. And I know how to get sponsors, which we need.”

He scoffs. “District Two always get sponsors.”

“Sure.” I lean back against the soft leather seat. “You guys are always top contenders, and people like to spend money on Tributes they think will win. But they also like to spend money on Tributes they care about, who they _want_ to see live. Katniss and Peeta didn’t have much going for them while they were holed up in that cave just trying to stay alive, but the Capitol loved them, and they spent money to help them when they needed it most.” There’s more to it than this, of course. But I need to pick the right time to explain to him the particular appetite we’re trying to cater to.

He considers this. “So you think you can just be more interesting than all the other Tributes and that will make sponsors like you more? And that’s supposed to help us win?”

It sounds almost like he’s testing me. “Not exactly,” I say. “People like who they like for their own reasons. But as I said: I’m willing to do whatever it takes to win, and if that means playing to what the Capitol wants, then that’s what I’ll do.”

“How are you supposed to know what they want?”

I can’t tell if he’s buying into the idea or if he’s ridiculing it. He’s incredibly hard to read, giving no facial cues and virtually nothing by way of body language either. This is going to be even more difficult than I anticipated. “I… have an idea. That’s something I’m good at.”  

Thankfully, the doors open barely a second later, and we exit into the basement of the Training Centre, one level below the gymnasiums. We take the elevator up to the top floor, exiting into a small hallway with two doors: one unmarked and one marked as stairs.

We take the second and after a short climb (thankfully, these heels are damn high) we’re out on the roof.

Rhodendra was absolutely right about the roof being a prime destination, but she sure was wrong about the gardens being _little._ The whole rooftop is covered in greenery, flowers in bloom, small fruit trees in blossom, stone benches and gazebos with crawling plants covering every surface. I even hear the trickle of a fountain, and we pass by a small pond with brightly-coloured fish swimming within.

It seems extravagant for an environment that I’m only just hearing about now. Oh, all the hours I’ve spent reading by the holo-window in my bedroom when I could have been up here!

I turn to Cato. “Did you know about this place?”

He looks around, shaking his head.

I choose the farther of the two gazebos, wanting shelter from the wind and sun but not wanting to be disturbed by any other Tributes, should they know about this place. _Someone_ must know… otherwise why is it here?

I sit on a bench, giving my feet a break, while Cato elects to stand, leaning against the wall of the structure, hands in his pockets.

“So,” I start, smoothing out my skirt, wondering only somewhat cynically if being half-naked will help me with these negotiations. “You know my thoughts on this partnership, but you haven’t told me what you think.”

He shrugs, but there’s dissonance between the casual movement and the way he keeps watching me closely. “It’s done now, isn’t it?”

 _This whole damn thing is a test to him._ “It still matters what you think about it.”

He doesn’t reply, and I wonder what kind of freak accident of fate I’ve fallen into, getting paired with the least expressive Tribute of the twenty-four.  

“Do you have any weapons skills?” He asks.

I shake my head. “I worked in a butcher shop, so I know how to handle knives without stabbing myself, but I can’t throw them or use a sword, or anything like that.”

“Are you strong? For someone of your… size?”

I raise an eyebrow. “Yes. For someone of my…size, I can hold my own.”

I can more than hold my own, in truth, but I don’t want to sound boastful, especially not to a Career who probably has a different idea of what “strong” is than I do. But while my sister Lowri is skinny as a rail, she’s still sixty-eight months older than me, and I’ve won every wrestling match with her since I turned twelve. Because I’m scrappy, according to Dad. And because I’m built like my mom, shorter and more compact than my willowy older sibling.

Cato nods, as if that’s the end of it. “We’ll see how you do in Training tomorrow.”

I relax a smidge at hearing that he’s at least willing to give a go at training with me; that’s another crucial step completed successfully. “Great.” There’s silence for a few moments. “So, Cato.” I swing my feet beneath the bench. “Tell me about yourself.”

He looks at me sidelong. “Why?”

 _So he’s really going to make it_ that _difficult, huh?_ “Well… because we’re partners now. We’re going to be spending the entire month together; it will help if we get to know each other, don’t you think?”

“How will getting to know each other help with anything _?_ ”

I take a deep breath. “With getting along, with getting the audience to like us, with training… with everything. Why? Are you nervous?” I lighten my tone. “Have you got many deep, dark secrets you don’t want me to know about?”

He stands there quietly for a minute longer, then wordlessly sits on a bench across the gazebo. “What do you want to know?”

“Well, do you have any brothers or sisters?”

“No.”

“Okay… how many years have you spent training for the Games?”

“Twelve.”

Shit that’s a long time. “What’s your favourite subject in school?”

He squints. “I don’t know. I didn’t spend much time on school work.”

I keep up this interrogation for about five more minutes, learning precious little about my new partner that I couldn’t have learned from his Tribute profile. I’ve had conversations with cows that have been less one-sided than this.

There’s a lull in the conversation—that is, I’ve temporarily stopped grilling him about his life—and as I watch him check his watch I realise that I need to change tactics.

“Do you have a girlfriend, back home?”

I can’t quite categorize the expression that flickers across his face, and it’s gone so quickly I’m left both frustrated by how good he is at keeping that mask on and delighted to have finally cracked it, even if just a little. “No.”

“Boyfriend?”

“No.”

“Anyone at all who might kick up a fuss if you were to get involved in a budding romance during the Games?”

He hesitates. “What are you talking about?”

I cross my legs at the ankle and lean forward. “I told you: I know how to get sponsors. You saw how the Capitol reacted to Katniss and Peeta and their whole Star-Crossed Lovers thing; imagine what they’d do if they got to see another pair of Tributes fall in love?”

To his credit, he doesn’t look immediately repulsed by the idea. “You mean us?”

“I know how it sounds. And I know this is probably making you question if I’m worth keeping around or if I’m delusional, but think about it: All twenty-four of us are paired up this year, so choosing who to root for isn’t about a favourite Tribute but a favourite _pair_ of Tributes. I promise they’ll be trying to turn us all into couples anyway, if they can, that’s just how the Capitol is. If we give them more to work with, then they’ll spend more time talking about us, and then they’ll spend more money on us.” I shrug one shoulder. “It’s not _simple,_ but it’s the truth. You know how they are—this is a big show for them. We need to be entertaining.”

It’s more than I wanted to explain when we got up here, but there it is. If giving him a script is what I’ll have to do to make him interesting, so be it.

I assume that the blank look on his face is one of consideration. I hope so, at least.

“So this is your big plan.”

“Not a plan so much as a strategy.”

“What will this look like?”

“At first?” I shrug. “Not much. They won’t believe we’re in love like Katniss and Peeta were right away; we only just met, after all. But a lot of the other Tributes will probably take a while to warm up to their partners, so if we can look like actual _friends_ right off the bat, that will be the first way to stand out.”

He nods. “Alright.”

“And the best way to _look_ like actual friends is to show that we know things about each other that other people don’t. _So,”_ I say tilting my head and smiling up at him, “Cato. Tell me about yourself.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics are from the song "Bunny" by Jillette Johnson.


	9. Fools' Gold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now that they're officially a Pair, Caer and Cato have a lot to figure out to make sure they make it out of the arena the Victors. Unfortunately, it's not exactly smooth sailing...

_That's the price you pay;_

_Leave behind your heart and cast away,_

_Just another product of today._

_Rather be the hunter than the prey,_

_And you're standing on the edge, face up_

_'Cause you're a natural._

* * *

_So, Cato. Tell me about yourself._

Scarcely have the words left my mouth when a loud _BANG_ sounds from across the roof, drawing both of our attentions.

“Emery!” A voice barks, and though the person belonging to it isn’t yet visible, we both know who it is.

A change comes over Cato, so subtly that I wouldn’t notice unless I was already watching him carefully, as the loud footsteps come closer. His barely-relaxed posture—leaning against the gazebo—straightens and stiffens out, his hands slip out of his pockets, and the tiny crease between his eyebrows smooths to what I can now recognize as a deliberate expressionlessness.

He’s fascinating to watch, even as I find it maddening to deal with someone whose only facial expressions are lightly varying shades of blank.  

Still, I’m intrigued by the way he reacts to his Mentor’s sudden appearance.

Brutus comes stomping over to the gazebo, giving Cato an annoyed glare as he swats some hanging ivy off his shoulder. He pauses mid-step into the little structure, as if just noticing that I’m here too. He gives me a long once-over which makes my skin crawl,  then turns back to my partner with a sneer clearly meant to express how beneath him (likely in more ways than one) Brutus thinks I am.  

“What are you doing up here?”

“Talking strategy,” Cato answers smoothly. “What’s wrong?”

Brutus licks his lips, his eyes once more flicking my way, something between a grin and a grimace spreading across his mouth. I’d never realised Brutus was so creepy. He’s been a staple presence on tv during the Hunger Games, having been Two’s golden boy in his heyday and now as their middle-aged Mentor, but he’d always just seemed like another bloodthirsty fanatic typical of his District. Up close, there’s something about the look in his eye and the curl of his mouth that reminds me just how truly dangerous he is.

Brutus is still in excellent shape—being of above-average height and broad of shoulder—though a bit more portly now that he’s nearly fifty, I’m sure thanks to his enthusiasm for Games season and all the excesses it provides. He’s been a Mentor for decades now, so he’s had time to indulge.

“You two seem to be getting along well,” he says instead of answering his charge’s question. “You going to introduce me?” He stares at me even while he directs his words at Cato.

I know what he’s doing, and I don’t let myself feel uncomfortable at his leering. District Two values strength above all else, and he wants to see what I’m made of. _Everything really IS a test for these people, isn’t it?_

Unfortunately, I know I’m not going to impress him with any sort of show of bravado—I’m not a killer like they are, and that’s not my style anyway. But if I’m not going to impress him, I can at least make him tolerate me. And eventually like me, ideally.

I surge to my feet, stepping forward quickly with my hand outstretched and a bright smile on my face. “I’m Caerwyn; it’s really great to meet you,” I say, seeming a little star-struck. “Holy shit, Brutus Cibilanni!” I shake my head, still smiling like an idiot. “I think I’ve seen every interview you’ve ever given since I was a kid; I’d know your face anywhere.” Partially true; of course I’ve seen a bunch of the interviews he’s given around Games time, but he’s never been anyone I’ve paid particular attention to. He’s not interesting. At all.

He smiles back, shaking my hand once, firmly. One eyebrow raises, slightly amused. “Charmed. That’s a lovely dress you’ve got on, Caerwyn.”

He mispronounces my name, of course, but I look down at my gown at his praise. I’d almost forgotten how practically naked I am. “Thanks. I can’t take any credit for it, of course,” I look back up, meeting his eyes. “I just wear what they put me in. My stylist does a fantastic job.”

He nods, chuckling. “It is a virtue to do as you’re told.”

I almost laugh. _Yikes_.

Instead I shrug. “I trust them; they know what they’re doing and that’s only going to help me.” I steal a quick glance at Cato, hoping it’s not so quick Brutus doesn’t see. “I’d like to win, after all.”

“I suppose you do,” he concurs. “I suppose then I should tell you about the latest bump in the road.”

I tilt my head. “What is it?”

That strange, pained smile again. “Farley got Paired with Logan.”

I don’t have to feign shock at this. Logan is the male Tribute from Four, another Career. With one slip of paper, they’ve become an incredibly dangerous, powerful enemy, and likely the favourites to win. “What?” I breathe.

Brutus nods, though once again his attention is all on Cato. “She’s pleased as a rat in the cellar, that’s for sure.”

My partner looks quite the opposite, if the rapid-fire twitch of his jaw muscle is any indication. “I bet she is,” he says.

I’m sure _this_ is the reason Brutus came up to bother us. Trying to push my buttons must have just been a side attraction.

He confirms this a second later. “I thought I would let you know you have your work cut out for you.” His eyes are suddenly hard, and he talks to Cato like I’m no longer here. “Farley’s gone to floor Four to watch the rest of the ceremony and take stock of the competition. I suggest you do the same, if you’re as determined as you claim to be about winning.”

Cato nods once. “We’ve been talking strategy and procedure,” he says, “we can—

“You _can_ get your ass downstairs and get to work,” Brutus interrupts, raising his eyebrows. “Flirting up here in this fucking garden isn’t going to get you any closer to victory, and you don’t have time for any… distractions.” He says this last with a sidelong look in my direction, though he looks thoughtful.

“We’ll be down shortly,” Cato grinds out. “We have some things to discuss here first.”

There’s a short stare-off between the two, and I watch Brutus closely. He’s easier to read than my partner, and the moment he backs down I see a flash of something in his eyes. Cato will pay for this later somehow, I’m sure.

The door to the roof slams behind the Mentor, but even when he’s long gone Cato doesn’t return to his prior relaxed state.

“We don’t have to stay up here,” I say gently.

He rounds on me, eyes flasing, and I step back instinctively. “We’re not going to talk about this in my apartment,” he says, like I’m an idiot for thinking so.

“I know,” I say as calmly as I can, “ but we don’t have to talk about it right this second either. We can come up here anytime we want, if it would be better to go downstairs now.”

“That’s only what Brutus thinks,” he says venomously. “He and Enobaria always have bets and competitions over their Tributes, and he’s just worried she’s winning.”

I think he’s about to say more, but he stops himself.

It’s no use, I think. We have more time up here now, but I don’t think I’ll get much out of Cato if he’s this agitated.

Bitterly, I note that at least he’s being somewhat expressive now. Apparently the only emotion he shows is anger. _Wonderful_.

“So… Brutus,” I start, leaning back against a support beam for the gazebo. _Time for some damage control._ “He seems like…” I search for the right words. I’m hesitant to call Brutus out as the raging asshole he really is; Cato strikes me as the sort of person to get defensive of his Mentor just because he’s from District Two, even though I know he would secretly agree with me. “I’ve met pleasanter people in my life,” I say instead.

Cato says nothing.

I sigh, quietly enough I don’t think he hears. “Okay, well, what about Farley and Logan? We should talk about this now, when no one else from Two is around. We don’t want anything we figure out to get back to her, right?”

He stays silent for a long moment before answering. “Brutus is right that she’ll be happy about her Pairing,” he starts. “But she’s already cocky, this will likely only make her worse. Especially if there aren’t any stronger Pairs out there, it’ll go right to her head. That could be good for us.”

“And there shouldn’t be a stronger Pair,” I say, thinking. “All three of you Career guys have already been Paired, and none of you got a Career girl besides Logan.”

I have a hard time deciphering the look he gives me. He’s starting to calm down, and with that the mask is falling back into place. “All three of us _what?_ ”

I frown, confused. “Careers?” I offer. “What, have you never heard that before?”

Now I understand the look. He thinks I’m a total moron. “No. Why are we _Careers?_ ”

“It’s just… it’s what we call you volunteers from One, Two, and Four. You’re not… not like the rest of us. You train for all of this.” I gesture widely. “It’s like you make it your career.”

“That’s stupid,” he says definitively. “You put the three Districts in the same category?”

Oh, _I see_. His dumb District Two pride is hurt that they all get the same title. “Yes, well, it suits. You three Districts volunteer way more than anyone—more even than everyone else combined. I know you all three probably do it differently, but to us outsiders that doesn’t really matter.” I shrug. “You’re _all_ Careers.”

“You could just call us the _Volunteers,_ ” he points out, arms crossed.

“Yeah, but you’re really not in the same category as the Katniss Everdeens.” I realize my mistake as the words are leaving my mouth, and I raise my hands in defense. “Not to say she’s better than you—don’t get your panties in a twist—she just didn’t train for the Games, or volunteer because she wanted to win. That’s the difference.”

He seems not to take much umbrage to this, though he does look taken aback when I mention panties. “What about Thane, then, from Seven?”

I hadn’t thought about that. “I guess it depends how good he is,” I admit. “But really, most of the time the Careers are just the six of you, provided you all volunteer.”

He shakes his head, clearly still thinking it’s a foolish distinction, and probably still sour that there isn’t a separate categorization for District Two, superior as he believes they are. “Alright, whatever. You’re likely right about there not being a stronger Pair, but don’t forget about Thane. Outer-District volunteers are rare, but they can be very dangerous.” He looks at something over my shoulder as he says this. “And Majestie wasn’t Paired when we left.”

He’s right about that. “Well the chances of the two of them getting Paired are hard to know, since we don’t know what the votes accomplished,” I say, trying not to get distracted by the calculations my brain immediately starts running, “but does it matter? From the sounds of things, Farley will be feeling pretty good about herself and Logan regardless of the other Pairs. Plus, I can’t imagine she’ll think very highly of an outer-District boy like Thane, even if he did volunteer. Maybe if _he_ gets an eleven in Training, but not before that.” Still, Farley would be an idiot to discount Majestie no matter _who_ either girl is partnered with. Yet another mistake I can hope for, but not count on.

Cato nods, jaw set. “Farley’s over-confidence will be good for us—you especially. She doesn’t think much of you, and she definitely won’t expect you to be any threat.”

“I’ll try not to let that break my heart,” I say dryly. “But I’m sure even if she’s over-confident she’s still very good at what she does?”

“Of course,” he says immediately. “We don’t send in anyone sub-par.”

I try not to laugh at the way he both openly despises his District Partner yet defends her abilities without question. Of course, the alternative to finding this funny is to be annoyed by it, but I try not to react that way either. “Okay… like how good are we talking? Who would you compare her to?”

He thinks about this for a moment. “Well she thinks she’s as good as Clove, but… I don’t know. She’s good; she’s strong and stubborn, and once she picks her strategy she’ll stick to it. She’s very angry.”

I take note of the strange way his voice changes when he says Clove’s name. _Things just keep getting more and more interesting…._

The fact that he mentions Farley’s anger is another good sign. Anyone who watched last year’s Games knows how devastating the combination of anger issues and cockiness can be for Tributes from Two (see: _Dominic Nicholl)_

I nod. “What about Logan?”

“Hard to say. He mostly keeps to himself in training, but he seems to really know what he’s doing. And he doesn’t seem like the sort to get cocky.”

It’s a helpful assessment, if not an encouraging one. If Logan is able to curb Farley’s arrogance, then we might just be back where we started. Then again, their differing viewpoints could pull them apart…

“I don’t think their Pairing should change our strategy any,” I say finally. “We still need to show the Capitol that we have something the other Pairs don’t, and we need to get them to care about and like us.”

“Farley won’t be able to do that,” Cato muses, not even sounding malicious, just honest. I don’t have trouble believing him. “She’s a bitch, and she couldn’t be interesting to save her life.”

I laugh. “Finally: some unadulterated good news.”

There’s a moment of silence, dragging on for a bit too long. It’s not uncomfortable, at least, but I suspect Cato is about to tell me that we need to head downstairs to watch the Pairings, which I _do not_ want to do with so much still to discuss. I suppose we’ve made _some_ progress, if not in the way I wanted, but—

“Alright,” he says quietly, checking his watch once more. “What else do you want to know? You have half an hour.”

“Half an hour to ask all the questions I want?” I ask, surprised. “Done. I’ll know you better than your own mother by the time we’re through.”

“Shouldn’t be hard, since she died when I was too young to remember her.” He leans back against the other side of the gazebo, cocking an eyebrow. “You’re off to a great start.”

“Right,” I say, trying to think of how to back gracefully away from _that_ train wreck. “Um, alright, what’s your best friend’s name?”

“Adrian.”

“And what three words would best describe Adrian?”

He frowns. “I thought this was about me?”

“Everything can’t always be about you, Cato,” I tease, and he rolls his eyes. “Seriously. This is the sort of thing the others probably won’t know about their partners that _I_ need to know about mine. What’s Adrian like?”

“A pain in the ass,” he says immediately. “We trained our whole lives together, me, him, and Dominic, and he got us all into trouble every chance he got. I must have run thousands of suicides because of him.”

“Okay, that was way more than three words, but I’m not complaining.” I sit back down on the bench, crossing one leg over the other. “Tell me more about training. What’s a suicide?”

He stays where he is. “It’s a sprinting drill. You have to run between lines on the ground that are spaced further and further apart. We had to do them every day, and then we would do more as punishment.”

“Punishment for what?”

“Losing, talking back, screwing something up when you should have been able to do it perfectly,” he shrugs, “lots of things. When more than one of us ran them whoever was slowest had to run more.”

“Okay. Who’s faster: you or Adrian?”

I _do_ laugh at the look he gives me this time, though he’s not joking. “Adrian,” he says, almost petulantly.

“Who’s stronger?” I bite my tongue when he scoffs. I’m learning which buttons yield results, and enjoying myself more than I should be.

“I am.”

That’s definitely not hard to believe—Cato’s size probably makes him stronger than most people, even others who’ve trained their whole lives for the Games.

This thought sinks like a stone in my gut. I’ve been so set on getting him as my partner that I haven’t really thought about what a formidable enemy he would have been, if I hadn’t been successful.

I take a good look at him now, feeling awash with relief that I don’t have to face him in the arena. He really is enormous—way above average height, and unlike most boys his age who are exceptionally tall, he’s really not skinny. He’s not heavy-set either, but well-muscled and healthily insulated. I imagine he’s been putting on weight before the arena, as we’ve all been trying to, only he probably got a head start.

I try not to stare too obviously at him, leaning casually on the beam, adjusting the cuff on his jacket. Even his _hands_ are massive. _How much must he weigh?_

How much must he _eat?_

He looks back up at me, meeting my eyes, and my breath catches. _It’s not even his size that’s the scariest part,_ I think. _It’s those damn eyes._ Pale blue, nestled under heavy brows, with just a little too much white showing around his irises. It’s not that he looks like his eyes are constantly open wide, it’s just… I don’t know how to describe it. It’s just unsettling. He always looks just a little too intense.  

“So who usually beats whom in a fight?” I ask, coming back to the present. “I’m assuming you sometimes fought each other while training.”

He nods. “We fought all the time. I usually won, but not always. He’s really good. He’d be stiffer competition than any of the other Tributes here,” he asserts. “And he would have won last year, if he’d played.”

What a curious thing to say. “Was he going to volunteer? Why didn’t he?”

“Dominic really wanted to go in,” he says slowly. “He was the lowest ranked, of the three of us, but he was still… he was still _really_ fucking good.” He pauses, then shrugs. “Adrian was never as eager to play as the two of us were. I never understood that.”

I lean forward, then back again, trying not to appear _too_ eager to hear more. “What makes you sure he would have won?”

I’m sure he has an answer ready, but it takes him a minute to say it. “Adrian would never have underestimated his opponents like Dom did. And the Capitol would have loved him, too. Even if he is a dick,” he adds.

“So he just decided not to volunteer last year, because Dominic wanted to? You guys get to decide that?” This surprises me. I always thought everything was decided ahead of time by the Mentors.

He checks his watch. “Not exactly.”

“How _does_ it work then?” I prod, legitimately curious. “They start training you so young; how do they decide who gets to stay on and then who finally goes in?”

“When you’re a kid they mostly just set you on running and weight training, doing other drills to see which kids have got grit. They keep the ones who show promise, and move us on to actually learning how to use weapons and eventually sparring. Once you’re about twelve or thirteen, they pick the most promising few pairs and lose the rest.”

Another surprising piece of information. “They train you in pairs?”

“More or less. They want Tributes who can work well together until it’s time to split up. Our rule is that you don’t split before the final eight, and they want to make sure the pair will stand by that.”

Hm. “Does everyone actually abide by that? Didn’t… what was her name… Anthea, from a few years ago—”

“Yes,” he says curtly. “Anthea killed her partner early. And it messed with the entire system of training for years afterward.”

Anthea only won the Games a few years ago, in sixty-nine, I'm pretty sure. “That’s why the next few Tributes from Two weren’t as friendly?”

He arches an eyebrow. “…yes.”

I remember being surprised when I saw a re-run of an older Games—61 I think—when I saw how chummy the pairs from Two were… relative to more recent years, that is. They’ve never been truly _friendly_.

“You’ve been doing a lot of research,” Cato says, watching me closely.

I shrug, but I’m glad that he noticed. “A little. I have a pretty good memory—and I always pay close attention to the Games.” I grin. “It seems to be paying off.”

He leans further back, his face once more unreadable. “What else have you noticed?”

“About Tributes from Two?”

“About our Victors.”

I pause, pretending to think about this as if I haven’t been for the past several days. “Well, your District doesn’t tend to care too much about looks and the whole razzle-dazzle—that’s more One’s thing. You guys seem to send in Tributes who are more like soldiers; you’re systematic and know how to avoid showing weakness.” He looks neither pleased nor insulted with this assessment. How _does_ he do that?

I push further. “But that’s gotten you into trouble a bit recently. Really, if I think back to the last decade or so of Victors… Anthea is your only one, isn’t she?” I don’t need to ask; I _have_ been doing a little research, and there was a Quarter Quell special on a few weeks before the Games that gave a brief run-through of all the Victors since the very first Hunger Games. District Two has had more than any other District with twelve total; five of those came in the last twenty-five years, including a three-year run that ended with Enobaria ripping her competition’s throat out in 62. But since that gruesome Games they’ve only had one Victor, and in that time District One has nearly caught up to them with eleven total Victors of their own.

Cato, of course, must know this better than most. “It was Cashmere and Gloss,” he says, his voice low.

“What do you mean?”

I wonder if I’ve finally hit too sore a subject for him when I see the hard look in his eyes, but his frustration doesn’t seem to be directed at me. “From One; Cashmere is the Victor from 63. Her brother Gloss won the next year.”

I know who they are: they’re two of the Capitol’s favourites, and their Games are often on re-run back home. At first, I’m not sure where he’s going with this, then I realise. “And then Finnick O’Dair,” I say, nodding, “and suddenly it wasn’t enough to just be really _good_ , you had to also be drop-dead gorgeous, and charming, and interesting, and then something a little more just to be sure.” You had to be in love with your District Partner, for example.

He nods. “There was a big drop in our sponsors after that.”

I try my best to hide how delighted I am to hear this. I couldn’t ask for better circumstances. Plus the whole situation with Dominic?

It’s almost too perfect.

I haven’t been feeling especially worried about getting Cato to agree to stick with me through these Games, not since he didn’t turn and walk away when I mentioned the Capitol looking for another pair of lovers, but now I start to think that I may be more secure than I realised. If he’s been aware of the dry spell in his District, and if he’s feeling the pressure of that proud tradition on _his_ shoulders (he _is_ a Legacy in the Quarter Quell, after all) then it makes sense that he wants to go above and beyond to bring District Two back to the top. There’s too much riding on him for him to let others’ mistakes be his own, and _that’s_ got to be why he’s been willing to hear me out and go along with my ideas.

As out-of-the-box as they might have sounded initially, it makes sense to him, too; the Captiol wants something _more._

Of course, even this assessment of my partner is a little backwards, I realise. _Sure, he feels the need to be the one to return Two to its former glory. But… if he fails, it’s not like he’s got to_ live _with the shame of that._

I shake my head. Careers are so damn complicated, and I don’t have time to sort through this one’s twisted psyche right this minute.

“Well, I think if we play our cards right, we should be able to get plenty of sponsors,” I say, looking up at him with a soft smile. “Especially if half of our toughest competition is a total bitch.”

He nods. I was hoping that would finally earn me a smile, but alas. “About this strategy of yours,” he begins, “what… exactly do you expect me to do?”

“You shouldn’t have to do too much.” That much has become apparent through this whole conversation; I can’t imagine him being anything other than stoic. I’ll be lucky if I can get him to seem _relaxed_ on-camera, instead of somewhere between bored and hostile. “Mostly just follow my lead: stand closer to me than you need to, put your arm around the back of my chair during the Pairs interview—casually—and just generally try to show we’re at ease around each other. While the other Pairs are warming up, we need to already be there.”

“So you’re saying you’re going to do most of the work?”

He doesn’t sound pleased by this. I thought he would be. “Well, yeah. I mean, no offence, but is anyone going to believe _you_ being _flirty?_ ”

His brow lowers. “No, but it seems like there should be more to it than just that.”

“That’s how it will have to start. Beyond that, like I said, just follow my lead.”

I decide to try something, perhaps against my better judgment; I never _have_ been able to help myself.

I tilt my head down a little, then look up at him, smiling slowly, my eyes soft. I remember the dress, once more. “I’ll follow _your_ lead in the arena; we both have our strengths, and we need to play to them.”

His face remains impassive, and he just watches me for a long moment. “Good try,” he finally says, quirking an eyebrow.

I laugh—it bursts forth before I can stop it—somehow more delighted it _didn’t_ work than I would have been if it did. “Well, it was worth a shot.” I grin, biting my lip.

He rolls his eyes, but his face seems to soften just a touch. “Alright.” The softness is gone as quickly as it appeared. “But you _do_ need to do what I say in the arena _and_ in Training. You’re going to have to watch my back during the Games, so I need you to be the best you can be.”

“Certainly,” I accede. “Like I said, we’ll play each to our strengths.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long-ass delay, friends. I wrote this entire chapter, edited it, and then scrapped the entire thing TWICE before coming up with this. Hopefully providing a bit more interaction between these kids will help me work my way back into your good graces.  
> Much love


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